Trials of a Prime
by supernova22
Summary: years after the war, in the transformers earth city, a civilian turned prime must rise to the challenge to solve a series of sudden murders. please review and comment
1. Chapter 1

**Creation of ice inferno/snowstorm prime goes fully to Jackspicerchase on deviatntart. A great artist who created the OC this is based on. Full credit goes to her and please check out her other works.**

The snow began to thicken on the city of New Cybertron, but that's just what Snowstorm Prime loved. She felt so out of her element in the city, and further so from her comfort zone in leadership. She savored the days like these, the rare moments where she could relax. The cold weather was barely registered on her thermometers, nothing like the storms she had back home. She headed out in her alt mode, a plowed pickup truck, and began helping the residents with clearing the snow from the street. Her plow helped clear the main roads, while she watched happily as other bots shoveled and scrapped to clear the entrances to their buildings and the public walk ways.

This sort of work was her true purpose, her original job and, if she was being honest, her vise. She took comfort in the everyday work she once spent megacycles dedicated to. Those days, long ago, when she was just known as Ice Inferno; she longed for the far gone days as a nobody laborer; a cybertronian civilian on an alien world. Her daily grind gave her purpose, one that she knew well. That all changed when she was "chosen" by the matrix of leadership. The relic of primehood had been passed down from leader to leader for over a million steller cycles. At the start of that time, most knew its most prominent bearer optimus prime, commander of the autobots. In the many years of the great war, the matrix was passed between great leader to great leader. But after cybertron itself withered, the war ebbed into a long stalemate and finally to not but a weak ideological feud. Within that long span, the matrixes power, and the prominence of its bearers, diminished. None of its bearers in the last thousand steller cycles or so ever even found themselves reformatted by its presence.

As the number of great leaders and warriors in the galaxy dwindled, the matrix passed continually from lesser soldiers, to bots of no standing or glory and even among ordinary bots and civilians; nobodies. Though many still valued the honor it represented, it no longer held the sway or greatness it once held over the masses. Some of those who were granted it were treated with respect or given some social standing, but it rarely marked the makings of a great leader anymore. That was where Ice Inferno got the short end of the rod. A ship of traders arrived on her colony and one older bot of the crew was the current bearer of the matrix. Either by its influence or knowing he was not long for this life, he chose to hand it over to her. Of its own accord it presented itself to Ice Inferno, and quite reluctantly, she accepted in unto herself. She felt no change in herself and continued her life like normal, telling no one of it. When her colony diminished, they decided to leave and join the collective transformer refuge that had been founded on earth.

When her ship arrived on the organic world earth, they found that the colony had been built from the remains of the battle worn fortress of autobot city. Now rebuilt and expanded into a true city, it also incorporated the deactivated base modes of the titans Metroplex and trypticon. The majority of its population was made up of refugees from Paradron, Junk and the various scattered, unaligned colonies. There were actually a very small number autobots, and even fewer decepticons, living in the city; many had perished in the long war. That's when everything fell apart for her. Windblade, a Camian and one of the representatives of the council that led the city, greeted them and gave them a tour. Unfortunately, that took them through the command center, and as they were shown it, it reacted to her presence, or rather that of the matrix, and spurred a security crisis.

That was where her life fell apart, in her eyes at least. She was from then on dubbed, by the traditionalists, as Snowstorm prime, a name which she didn't really like. She went on for sometime trying to fight the title but eventually gave up. She was immediately welcomed, to some degree, by the civilians, as it had been years since a prime had been so prominent. Her friends and those that were like family to her grew distant; they never looked at her the same way again, which killed her. As indecision amongst the new council kept the city from fast advancement, they chose to make a change and, against her protests, named her speaker of the council and de-facto leader of the whole colony. In her new role she was charged with protection and leadership of the city, acting as the final word amongst the council, ruling over and passing judgment over guilty parties and managing relations with the humans. It was all far too overwhelming for her and a terrible burden but she could not refuse or decline, not with so many looking to her for guidance. None had ever looked at her like they did.

After a long hard day of work, which she truly did enjoy, she transformed and surveyed her handiwork. She was slightly taller than the average bot, and had a somewhat bulky frame, at least for a typical femme; she was built to withstand extreme conditions afterall. Her armor was mostly sky blue with white highlights and scattered light blue and red details. She had pointed audio receptor "ears" on each side of her helm and a red visor always over her optics. Her plow split to sit on the front of each of her shoulders, which had given her some trouble with standard sized doors for as long as she could remember. She kicked a bit of the snow absentmindedly as she was lost in thought and contemplated going for a walk when she got a call.

"snowstorm prime ma'am, we have a serious situation" jazz reported

"what is it jazz?" she groaned, exasperated

"we need you downtown in the fast lane, there…" he trailed off

She felt concerned, jazz was skilled but rarely so serious; that was one of the main reasons she had named him head of the security force.

"what is it jazz?"

"prime, there's been a murder, actually, there's been two"

She froze, unable and unsure how to act; such a serious occurrence had not happened in the time she was prime, and from her understanding, not for many years before that.

"I'll…I'll be right there jazz. Send me the coordinates" she stammered out

"will do prime. I've taken the liberty of bringing in the whole force to secure the area and keep to many bots from finding out"

"good...that's good. Thank you jazz"

As the line went dead, she found she was staggering blankly down the road rather than driving, completely overwhelmed. She never comprehended that she would have to ever deal with such a crisis. She knew she was not made to be a prime and now everyone else would see it to, with a double homicide occurring under her tenure of leadership. She imagined a mob marching on the command tower and demanding the matrix be ripped from her chest. She glanced over and saw a bot she recognized as being from her colony. He was window shopping with what looked to be a young female protoform. Since their exposure to human society, cybertronians had absorbed some of its more stable concepts, families being the most prominent. They looked so happy and at peace. She remembered than that those were the reasons she persisted in her role; to protect those that had put their trust in her. After the hard slap across the face she gave herself to get her out of her daze, she transformed and took off towards the crime scene.

She arrived in less than 20 minutes, and saw how the security force had indeed blocked the area off. Luckily jazz was good at thinking on his feet that it had been done in a way that did not attract to much attention. The security force let her through and jazz led her to the site of the crime. The security force was primarily made up of autobots and decepticons who were still looking to use their combat skills from the war. Some were just looking to still have some measure of power and though they were in an age of peace, there were always troubles that needed some force. The force was comprised of autobots chromia, cliffjumper, arcee, springer, powerglide, pipes, nightbeat, strongarm, sideswipe, sunstreaker, chase, quickshadow and decepticons barricade, swift, rumble, frenzy, vortex, breakdown, snaptrap, demolishor and many colonists. She also saw the new rookie officer megaplex. As they made their way, suddenly a commotion from behind started as two bots forced their way through the barricade. Snowstorm sighed as she saw who they were as they both rushed over to her.

"drift, lancer, glad you could make it" she huffed

"of course, my prime. Our duty is to ensure your protection" drift nodded

Both bots had sworn themselves as her body guards when she became prime. Lancer was eager to please but otherwise professional, though drifts religious beliefs could be taxing at times. Both were bots that stuck to melee weapons so they had the look of the job down. Before they could proceed they were suddenly ambushed by the true bane of her leadership; the media. Blaster, an autobot and public broadcaster, aided by his mini-con partners and walking cameras, eject and rewind, suddenly appeared in her way. They were also joined by the 3 bot form of reflector, a decepticon who had also found success in news broadcasting; his ability to be in 3 places at once proved a benefit for his reporting. They ambushed her with questions and inquiries regarding the deaths. If any group were the most undermining to her as prime, though usually inadvertently, it was them. Thankfully, before she could get misquoted or lead in the wrong direction, jazz had them escorted away.

"I got you prime. Please, the victims are right over here"

As they walked, barricade made a move to hit drift with his shoulder and the two shared a tense glare before moving along. She had taken notice that many decepticons, but most prominently barricade, showed disdain for drift. He must have been an infamous autobot during the war. She was finally brought before the grisly sight of the two bodies, both with many deep gashes and wounds. Both were faded grey, indicating they were clearly deceased. Mixed energon from both bodies was splashed everywhere; Snowstorm didn't have to be a forensics expert to tell this was a sloppy butchering job.

"do we know anything about the victims?" she asked

"the big one is an autobot named bulkhead, and she's a con called slipstream" jazz reported

"so it was a faction feud then?" she asked

"no, unfortunately. That is what we originally thought but after some examination, we found that the injuries on both bots match, and neither was capable of inflicting them" barricade reported

"so we have two victims and a murderer on the loose"

"yup, two factions and a 3rd party were involved here"

"this just keeps getting better and better. Do you have any leads?"

"here" barricade pointed

They looked to see watery foot prints leading away from the scene but they dried up half way down an ally.

"I want a total sweep of the area and a full investigation. Question and bring in any suspicious bots and follow any leads, understand. I will not have a killer loose in this city and threatening our people"

"yes prime" they saluted

Snowstorm and her body guards turned and left, escorted by sideswipe and sunstreaker back to the command tower. As the rest of the team began the investigation and clean up, chromia and barricade met with jazz on his orders.

"so jazz, where should we start?"

"I suggest we scope out the radicals on each side"

As the prime and her entourage drove down the freshly plowed road, she turned to lancer.

"please message the council members that I am calling an emergency meeting"


	2. Chapter 2

Snowstorm dodged and swung in a flurry of clumsy moves. In the year since her appointment, she had been convinced by her body guards to be trained in self-defense. Per them, a leader should know the ways of combat, if only as a point of experience. From hand-to-hand to ranged target practice and today was a session of close combat. She and her trainers each wielded an energy staff and they doubled down on their assault. As she grew aggravated and finally pushed back in her own offensive, she was suddenly halted as she received a message from Playback, a pardronian and the cities head of communication. As she went to answer she was struck in the face by a blow from drifts staff.

"remember, an enemy is never going to give you a breather"

"no, but a prime can order an execution" she scowled

After receiving Playbacks report that the council was assembled, she and her bodyguards headed to the meeting chamber. The hall entrance was guarded by the decepticon blitzwing, who merely nodded to her as she entered but frowned at her autobot escorts with disdain. She took her seat at the large round table and nodded for the others to do the same. Politics was the part of her job she was the least comfortable with so she was glad she had the council members to fall back on. First was windblade, a friendly and idealistic femme from Caminus who acted as the representative for the unaligned masses and colonists. The eager young Sandstorm sat as the elected speaker for the bots of Paradron. Wreck-gar and Rum-maj , as the duel leaders of the junkions, represented their people. The autobots and decepticons also held seats among the council, represented by hot shot and obsidian respectively. The debating and arguing concerning the murders went on for some time, and as usual, she could hardly get a word in. Though none of the council were ever openly hostile towards her, she knew that collectively they would prefer she step aside more and allow them to once again handle state affairs. She imagined their inducting of her was more from public pressure. However, her pride would not allow her to be stand down. She needed a way to force them to properly acknowledge her as an equal. In her boredom, she pulled up archived images of bulkhead and slipstream on her console. In life she now saw that he was dominantly green and she was purple and teal in color. He was a laborer turned soldier turned laborer again after the war. She was a renowned seeker commander and tactician who remained unemployed while in the city.

"prime, ma'am" came a meek voice

She was jolted from her thoughts at the realization that the diminutive Tailgate was standing beside her with a data pad. She took it and saw a report on the murder investigation. Hinting on a course of action that may improve her standings, she cleared her voice to gain the council members' attention.

"council members, due to the severity of this situation and the desire to see the issue resolved, I intend to head the investigation myself"

The declaration earned a few gasps and at least one snicker, though from who she could not tell.

"prime, that is not necessary " windblade argued

"im afraid it is. As prime, protecting this city is my duty, and I shall see it through. My ah…personal agents have made a possible breakthrough and I shall follow up on it and investigate further. In my absence I name ah…" she looked to tailgate inquisitively

"tailgate" the mini bot answered

"tailgate, yes! one of my trusted agents, to sit in on any further council meetings to take notes for me. Please treat him with the same respect that you would me. Good day all"

With that the prime quickly left, followed by her bodyguards. All eyes then turned to the nervous little white autobot, who shyly slid into the primes large seat and crossed his hands in a respectful manner.

"sooooo, hi" he waved

The trio drove down to the security force station where, per the report tailgate delivered, they had a suspect in custody. They made their way through the complex and met jazz. He was just as surprised as the council at her taking charge, but ever the adaptable bot, he relented. She was however informed that their suspect had a solid alibi and was innocent. She was shown the large repulsive sight of the decepticon Spittor sitting in the interrogation room. They had found him apparently wet not far from the crime scene, and believed him to be the owner of the moist footprints. However, what he was covered in was in fact his natural slime, and witnesses were able to confirm his presence at a local store. Released from custody, he was led out, though snowstorm made a point to stop him.

"Spittor was it, I want to formally apologize for your trouble in this and assure you that this issue will be dealt with and you will have no further trouble. Please, have a nice day"

Everyone stared blankly at here for a few moments as she pulled him into a hand shake.

"aaaah…thank you, prime…ah ma'am" he croaked in confusion

He was led away by security staff while drift, lancer, barricade and chromia all looked to the prime with surprise; jazz simple smiled and gave a thumbs up. He then handed her a rag to wipe off the decepticons natural slime, in which her hand was now coated.

"that was pretty decent of you prime but you didn't need to do that"

"yes, I did" she smiled

"so, where does the case go now?" lancer asked

"unfortunately, at the moment the water is our only lead. The science guild has been brought in to do forensics on the bodies but until they get back to us with results we have little to go on" chromia reports

"not quite, the water is a clear clue, if you stop and think about it; there are no easy access water sources in the city aside from the dam and river…" she hinted

"and all the aquatic bots that hang there" jazz nodded

"yes, our killer may very likely be one of them!" drift declared

"alright, we'll get the force down there to…" barricade started

"no, no good or progress will come from marching down there in force. "WE" will head down there and see what we can find out. This investigation is still important but the security force still has its usual duties to see to"

"are you sure it's safe?" chromia asked

"that is why we are here" drift brandished his sword

"pathetic as ever _deadlock_" barricade scowled, his words dripping with venom

Drifts eyes flared and he tensed, looking as if he would pounce on the decepticon. jazz quickly put himself between them and broke it up firmly. As the trio turned to leave, jazz stopped snowstorm.

"just so you know, I have known my fair share of primes, and you are more than livin' up to the title" he smiled

"thanks jazz" she smiled back

It took nearly an hour for them to reach the waterfront. As they waited for the guard to secure them security passes to proceed, snowstorm looked to drift, who sat on a crate, staring down with a solemn look. He held his sword so the point was in the ground and he twisted it slowly, digging at it with the tip. Wanting to finally learn more about the bot she had entrusted her safety to, she knelt down next to him.

"decepticons really don't like you huh. did you cause them a lot of trouble during the war?" she asked

He smirked and let out a sound of amusement, looking off into the distance like he was reminiscing.

"I keep forgetting that you weren't there for the war; not out there with the rest of us; not knowing what everyone else knows"

"which is?"

"in the early years of the war...I was a decepticon"

"wait...what. you must be joking"

"never, not about this. I went by deadlock back then. I was a violent young punk swayed by megatron and his ideals. I worked close with barricade, I wouldn't call us fiends but, yeah, we were close. In my fervor for battle I wound up damaged and forgotten on the battle field. An...order of neutrals, warriors and scholars they were, found me, repaired me and taunt me their ways. I found a peace in their ideals and realized I had been living my life wrong. I cast aside my guns, took up the sword and swore my life to the autobots. Many, on both sides, would resent my choice, barricade included. I caused both sides much...trouble"

"drift, primus, I didn't know"

"ha, you're one of the few" he smiled

They were interrupted by the old security guard, Landmine, returning with their passes and he pointed them down to the aquatic bots there were of various backgrounds, most of which was ignored due to their shared function. They all mostly congregated at the marina downstream from the massive city dam. They spoke to most of the bots there; autobots sea spray, paddles and broadside, decepticons tidal wave, the remaining 5 seacons and the neutrals sharp edge, manta ray, claw jaw, depth charge and torca. The only unaccounted bot was the neutral nautica, who was confirmed as working at the science guild. The rarity of them straying from their usual element, as well as security cameras confirming it, apparently led them to another dead end.

"hey, now that I think about it, riptide ain't here" broadside spoke up

"yeah, he hasn't been seen in a while I think" manta ray realized

"went into city in morning" tidal wave bellowed

Further security footage confirmed it; the autobot hydrobot Riptide had indeed gone into the city that morning and not yet returned. After confirming he was known to hang out and at the bar "new Maccadams", they followed their next clue. They got to the bar eventually, though hit lots of traffic due to the big race today. Top racers knockout, mirage, blurr and override were going head to head in the finales of a new circuit. Prime remembered seeing some of the the last race, where ransack, crumplezone and tracks were knocked out of the finals. The prime was happy the citizens could find enjoyment and entertainment but surprised a race would take place in such weather, though from the display screens they passed, the track was in perfectly cleaned condition. That got her circuits sizzling as whoever was in charge of clearing snow from the roads they were on had clearly done a half ass job. As a hard worker from the moment she was sparked, nothing was more infuriating to her than slacking off. Worse was that it is essential work that needs to be completed for public safety. She suddenly kicked into her prime mode.

"snowstorm prime to tailgate"

"this is tailgate"

"please pull the records for what workers were in charge of clearing snow from street G184. I want them identified and put on double shift for the next week, understood"

"ahh..yes, yes ma'am"

"prime out"

"man, you can be scary when you mean business" lancer spoke up

"no one shirks work in my city"

They made it to the new bar, which was an exact recreation of the original on cybertron, and still run by maccadam himself. They trio made their way through the crowd, despite their notoriety; maccadam himself came from behind the counter to welcome the prime. He was an orange and silver bot with some blue highlights here and there; average in height but stout and with large hands. His eyes were big and round like magnifying lenses and he always had a smile on his face. However, her body guards were forced to put themselves between them to keep on mission. Maccadam took on stern look, warning against trouble; his most longstanding and enforced rule that conflict be kept out of his establishment.

They found riptide hunched over at the bar. A mostly dark blue and moody looking bot, his boat mode kibble was a dead giveaway.

"riptide?" the prime asked

"what!?" he jumped, clearly intoxicated

The interrogation was short but tense and full of accusation, but maccadam himself confirmed that the bot had spent his whole day there drinking. Apparently, due to subpar intelligence scores, he was rejected from joining the security force that morning. That technically still could have made him a prime suspect for the murders, but maccadam vouched for him; though that meant little to her, it was a big deal to many others. She couldn't argue much. Out of pride, and in no small part due to his mindset, riptide volunteered his aid to the prime, which she reluctantly accepted. Taking a break, snowstorm and the bar owner sat and talked amongst themselves over a drink. Drift and lancer meanwhile sat with riptide to try and cheer the bot up and get to know him better.

"I think it's very brave you taking this investigation on yourself" maccadam smiled

"thanks, just doing what I think I'm supposed to" she shrugged

"well, I have known my share of primes, and you are certainly living up to the title" he nodded

"why do bots keep saying that?" she thought to herself

"so, obviously this tragedy must be affecting a lot of bots"

"I suppose, I never really considered that part of it" she admitted

"I know it is me. I knew both bulkhead and slipstream well; they were just adorable together"

"what do you mean?"

He looked blankly at her then frowned.

"you don't know, do you?"

"know what?"

He set down his drink and gestured for her to follow him to a back room for privacy. She gestured for the others to stay put and after she was ready he looked at her with a slightly calmer face.

"I…think I know why they may have been killed"

"what?!"

"Obviously I'm a bot that gets all sorts types and have a lot of information that flows through here and certain…"

"maccadam, what is it?" she placed her hands on his shoulders

"they…were in an relationship"


	3. Chapter 3

"what did you say?" she asked in shock

"they were an inter-faction couple. They are almost never seen, even in these days. Lots of judgment floats around. There is still plenty of animosity among the still loyal autobots and decepticons. They mostly kept it a secret, and I was one of the few privileged with the knowledge"

"wow, I just, this means a lot. I mean it changes everything about this investigation. We may very well be looking at a hate crime. I can't believe this"

"it can be a lot to handle. If it's a hate crime your dealing with, you may want to look to the diehards; the bots and cons who still hold pretty close-to-spark values from their sides of the war"

"I…I'll do that. Thank you maccadam, thank you for everything"

Snowstorm and her team, now including a sobering riptide, left to meet and update jazz on their investigation. Maccadam called his staff together; autobot Roller and decepticons waspinator and spacewarp.

"bots, I'm giving y'all the night off, but only so you can go out and gather some info. I want to give prime all the help she can get in her investigation. Them two were my friends to and I want whoever snuffed their sparks brought to justice to"

Snowstorm returned to security HQ and revealed everything she had learned to jazz.

"hmm, based on all this, it seems my initial intention to investigate the radicals..."

"the what?"

"like maccadam told you, there are plenty of hardcore loyal bots and cons, plenty I imagine would have an issue with bulk and slipstreams relationship"

"so how do we follow up on that?"

"there is a place up town that a lot of the autobot war horses hang. Kup, elita-one, what's left of the wreckers and others of the like. Me and chromia can hit there and get some answers no problem. It's the cons that can be a handful. I would send barricade or one of the others, but I don't know how much they'll get"

"why?"

"well, I mean they are cops, and cons don't trust each other much under even regular circumstances"

"scrud, I guess...I'll go then"

"that…is not a very good idea. You have and all autobot escort. I might just end up with 4 more murders on my hands"

"then…I'll go alone, I'm not an autobot after all"

"that is an even worse idea! And you know drift and lancer aren't gonna go along with it. And as the head of security I can't just…"

"yes you can, I'm asking you to. And not to pull rank here but I am a prime and that's an order"

"but…"

"jazz, you said I was acting like a prime. You fought with optimus, the greatest prime that ever lived. Did you ever tell him no, did he ever put his life on the line for justice?"

"heh…all the time, and he would let absolutely nothing stand in his way of doing what was right" he smiled

"and I can't either...as much I really don't want to go"

They proceeded with their plans, with jazz, chromia, lancer and skids heading to the mid-north end to "little Iacon", while Prime drove for the far west part of the city, in the section built upon the remains of trypticon, where Prominent decepticon figure Soundblaster owned an establishment for the more loyal of the former decepticon forces. Barricade, who had been there before, gave her the password that would earn her entry. Jazz insisted she take a weapon for protection, something she was unsure about. Regardless, as she transformed near the location, she indeed had an ion blaster affixed to her back. She found the place easily; not very hard with a large stylized decepticon symbol on the front. She knocked on the large metal door and a after a few seconds a small slot opened, through which two bright red optics stared down at her.

"starscream is a bigger coward than a turbofox in a driller nest" she recited

The red eyes narrowed to slits before the hatch slammed closed, then after a few more moments of silence the door opened. She entered slowly, her eyes having to adjust to the low lighting of the inside. It was primary a lounge and bar, at least in the main room that she walked into. Red and yellow optics followed her as she walked to the bar. From reports she had been given after taking office, she recognized many of the decpeticons; Sixshot, tankor and ramjet all sat at one table looking nasty. The massive blackout lurked behind her, having been the doorman. Swindle and needlenose sat together at one table, while strika, mindwipe, Astraea and slugslinger sat at another. Astrotrain, dead end, flip sides, acid storm and spinister all sat spaced out at the bar. switchblade was slumped over, passed out on a sofa of sorts. Sitting alone acting like she owned the place was thunderblast and finally, at a table tucked in a corner were scorponok and blackarachnia, looking more shady then the rest.

"well well, it appears our prime has paid us an honored visit" came a deep, synthesized voice

She turned to see soundblaster appear from behind the bar; a boxy black and gold bot with a blank visor and mouth plate, reclined and bound in a levitating life support chair. She had heard that he had long been in this state. Astrotrain, massive as he was, hopped up to loyally move some chairs for the owner to get past. Waddling beside the chair was the malformed mini bot Igor, acting as his aid. Buzzsaw came to perch on his shoulder, the last as most of the spy masters' mini bot minions had either perished in the war or gone rogue.

"it's good to finally meet you soundblaster. As a master of information, I imagine you understand why I am here"

"I do"

"we don't answer to no prime" astrotrain scowled

A chorus of growls and grunts of agreement rose from around the room.

"show some respect, a prime she may be but she shows no more favoritism for the autobots than for us" soundblaster lectured

"thank you, I do try to be mostly impartial, though if I'm being honest decepticons do have a tendency to cause more trouble"

"I can't quite argue that point. Two of our associates were apprehended by the security force today on what I have been told are trumped up charges"

"yeah, shatter and dropkick got slammed for trouble they didn't start"

Snowstorm felt the room was turning against her and her first instinct was to just get out of there. However, she needed to earn their respect, same as the council, to get the info she needed. This felt like the hardest trial of her primehood so far, and she fought to put on a stern face.

"if they were taken in then it's because they did something wrong. I don't interfere or tell the security force how to do their job and as they are made of autobots AND decepticons, I do trust them to act fairly to all bots. As a show of good faith, I will look into the case to ensure all was done in fairness" she announced

Astrotrain frowned in disdain, and all other eyes were on soundblaster. He looked blankly back at her, showing his usual lack of emotion to her words.

"I consider that an acceptable response"

"good. Tell me what you know about bulkhead and slipstream, together. I take it as "ring leader" of the local cons you knew"

"Affirmative, there is nothing that I do not know"

"go on"

"I was well aware of their…collusion; I had no feelings or interest either way about it. I do know that many decepticons did consider it a betrayal on her part. There are some among us that may have the ability to act on it, but none that I am associated with. None of the bots here or connected with us were in involved. That is all I know"

"really" she asked skeptically

"you heard him, soundblaster don't lie, now get lost lady" astrotrain growled

Soundblaster eyed astrotrain menacingly before turning back to the prime.

"I'm afraid there is no other way I can assist you at this juncture. But slipstream was one of use, and I do want justice for who killed her. Should you need any additional help, you know where to find us. I suggest astrotrain go with you to assist in your investigation…"

"what?!" the triple changer choked

"…as a show of good faith in our prime, and as a means of settling his tab"

"no...but…grrrr….ah fine"

The pair left the establishment amid a symphony of cruel decepticon laughter at their comrades' predicament. Snowstorm transformed and astrotrain went to his land based alt mode and they took off. They went only a few blocks when two bots pounced out to corner them.

"back off con" drift growled

He and riptide drew their weapons before snowstorm stepped in front of them.

"stand down you two, astrotrain has…volunteered to aid in the investigation. He's part of team prime now"

"I am not saying that" he growled

"yeah me either, sounds lame" riptide added

"well I like it and I'm using it"

"we headed right here after Lancer confirmed that they got nothing from little iacon. Jazz just radioed us that the science guild had responded that they were done with their examination of the bodies. What next?" Drift reported

"tell jazz we will head to meet them. He can send lancer to meet us there and he and the others can return to the station"

"will do prime"

"huh, you're a bit more commanding then I thought you were. Im a little impressed" astrotrain admitted

"thank you" she smiled

The 4 bots rendezvoused with lancer at the new science academy. They were met by its head, Perceptor, who brought them to meet with the rest of the guild members; brainstorm, deluge, oil slick, proxima nautica and the mini-con Brains. Perceptor led them away to the examination room where the greyed bodies of bulkhead and slipstream lay. Knowing what she did now, it was much harder to look upon the deactivated forms of the poor couple.

"After examination of the bodies, we have deduced that it was clearly an energy enhanced blade of unknown origin that was the cause of the fatal injuries. Also strange is that the pattern of the strikes and wounds indicate the attack was random and apparently rage fueled. It was not a strategic killing or assasination" he reported

Astrotrain had spent many years fighting in the war; he'd seen lots of terrible things, done plenty himself, but he found a strange tinge of sympathy and sadness at it all.

"thank you, is there anything else?"

"well, we did notice some abnormalities in slipstreams physiology, suggesting…"

Suddenly the diminutive autobot cosmos, who acted as a messenger and courier, burst in.

"Snowstorm prime, jazz sends an urgent message for you to come to security central, there is an emergency!"

"oh great. thank you perceptor, let us know if you find out anything else"

"of course prime" he frowned, disappointed about not finishing his report

The team left quickly and headed to meet with jazz, though astrotrain switched to his flight mode and took off ahead of them. So many worries went through the primes mind on what else could be wrong. They arrived and were led to a secluded room, but jazz and astrotrain met them at the door before they entered, a look of misery on the formers face.

"jazz, what's wrong?"

"there's been another killing"


	4. Chapter 4

"please…don't tell me that" prime pleaded

"well, it is" astrotrain answered with no attempt at tact

Jazz chose not to show the body, for it was in a graphic state. Drift alone requested a closer look and was brought in by barricade, who for once displayed no animosity under the situation. Even he was not prepared for the gruesome sight; poor nightbeats' chest was ripped open and his spark yanked out, dangling by a few wires and his head looked like it had been half wrenched off his torso.

"what happened?" prime demanded

"nightbeat is one of the best investigators ever. I decided to send him and flareup to investigate by the south end. According to her, he got a lead and they were following it when she was knocked out from behind. When she came to, nightbeat was real dead"

"what was the lead?"

"he didn't tell her, that wasn't really his style; he just kinda mutters and does everything in his head and expected everyone else to keep up"

"how is she?"

Jazz pointed over to where the emotional femme was sitting and being comforted by other officers. Snowstorm moved to go over to her but riptide stopped her and shook his head with a frown.

"not the time prime, not the time"

"Worse to is trainee megaplex, who I sent on another lead in the mid-city, has gone missing. Signs of a struggle were found and we are following up but we fear the worst. Obviously he must have found something too"

"oh primus, this is all going to the pit and there's nothing I can do. I'm failing as prime" she grimaced

"I've seen worse" astrotrain managed a smirk

Drift soon returned from the room, revealing from what he could see, a different method was used to kill nightbeat. Weather the killer did it intentionally or it was done by another were not clear. What was clear was that under the circumstances, it was no coincidence. Nightbeat was killed because he was close to discovering the identity or motive of the original murderer. The team spent hours at the station resting, comparing notes and theories. The prime, exhausted, watched the light snow fall as the day slipped into sunset. The first theory that was thrown out but rejected was that the humans were involved. She had limited the humans access to the city when she took office and save for special circumstances or select bots, the two species didn't fraternize much. She considered it an unnecessary extra worry.

The most prominent counter to that rule was the well-known autobots like bumblebee, Ratchet and a few others she couldn't remember, who had moved away from the city to live with the human family the autobots had worked with when they came to earth. Snowstorm couldn't really remember their name either, only that it was hard to pronounce. Outside of them, the primary transformers that lived away from the city were the "exiles", usually called the earth bots. They were certain bots that had greater connections to earth. There were the dinobots, or rather the 3 members of the second generation of the warriors built; a group of wild warriors who were created on earth by the autobots. They proved less civilized or otherwise did not feel accepted by the greater cybertronian society and now lived out of the autobots original ship base a few miles outside the city. There was Nightbird, a human-made ninja robot that was augmented and inducted by the decepticons that later gained sentience and Autobot X, a Frankenstein monster of spare autobot parts, which retained a replica of the mind of a human who had previously been bonded to it. Transmutate and Rampage were another duo; from the files prime read on her, she was an unstable bot, both in mind and power, who simply had too much difficulty adjusting to large crowds and areas. Rampage on the other hand was a mere murderous psychopath, with only his friendship with the gentle transmutate curbing his violent tendencies. Flamesnort was a beastly decepticon veteran stationed on earth for centuries and more than a bit senile. Also part of the group was the autobots jetfire and sky lynx; the former was a bot of cybertrons distant past, a scientist and explorer, who had spent centuries entombed in stasis on earth. He felt a much closer connection to the human world than his own after being freed. Sky Lynx on the other hand was simply too big and awkwardly shaped of a bot, being dragonian in design, to properly coexist with other bots within the city. Upon thinking of the outsiders, snowstorm suddenly had an epiphany and ran back to the others.

"I have it!" she shouted

"have what?" lancer asked

"According to perceptor, the first murders were perpetrated by a bladed weapon, correct?"

"sure prime, so?" jazz responded

"and I assume you compiled a list of all registered bots with them?"

"of course, but none met the qualifications of being the killer"

"then we would perhaps be looking for unregistered bots, like the dinobots perhaps"

"the dinobots wouldn't do this, ain't their style"

"maybe by your account but all options must be considered. From my point of view, they are rogue bots living off the grid and outside the law with unregistered weapons, including blades; even nightbird is known to wield swords if I recall"

"huh, I still say it's bunk but if you insist we can follow up"

"I intend to. Please radio the ark base and let them know we will be paying them a visit tomorrow but do not disclose the reason"

"but their our autobots, friends, we should…"

"that's an order, jazz"

"yes prime" he relented

Team Prime made for the ark the next day around noon, but hit a snag in another mild snow fall. The others found it cumbersome but as usual, it put the old ice inferno behind the prime at ease and content. She was surprised to come across another snow based bot on the road to the ark. Snowcat was a hardy decepticon but lacked the factions' signature ruthless nature. A bot of white and blue and mint highlights, not different from her own shades. He had a bright purple visor, a mouth plate and a breathing mask like apparatus over it. He had a pair of retractable skis from his legs ejected as he swerved down a snowy hill beside the road, yodeling all the way down.

"yohohoh, how we doing today?" he cackled madly

His comment seemed directed only to the other snow based bot. She transformed and smiled, laughing at the flabbergasting of his realization of who she was.

"it's good to see another bot who can properly appreciate this kind of lovely weather" she said

"it's what I'm built, or rebuilt for hahahah. Used to be a copter-bot but got reformatted into this, but I like this much better though"

"That thing you're doing in the snow, it's very interesting, what is it"

"I always just called it ice gliding, but the humans call it skiing. Either works"

"I'd love to learn some time though I don't think I have the balance needed"

"you'd be surprised"

They were interrupted by drift clearing his voice and the others gesturing for them to continue. After exchanging a friendly goodbye they transformed and left snowcat behind. He watched them go but as he went to head back up the hill again, he spotted a dark figure sticking out in the clear snow. It was a bot and given their position, they appeared to have been following the caravan.

"eh, you there, what you think you're doing?!" he stormed over for an answer

"well, seeing a prime flirt is quite a traumatizing sight" riptide spoke up

"I was not flirting; I just appreciate other bots who like extreme weather"

"riiiight" lancer teased playfully

"I did not get forced into this hunt to help a prime get a sparkmate" astrotrain groaned

"one, it's not a hunt; two, if any bot says that again, as prime, I will throw you in a cell for the rest of your miserable life"

There was only silence the rest of the drive to mount St. Hilary and the entrance to the ark base. Jetfire, acting as de-facto leader, was waiting at the entrance to welcome them. He was big, standing even a deal taller than astrotrain, which threw them all off.

"welcome snowstorm prime, we are honored by your visit"

"it's a pleasure to see where it all began for the autobots here on earth. I am just here to do an inspection for myself, figured it would be good to do in my position; talk to and get to know the bots and the such" she bluffed

"no problem at all, please come in"

They entered up the ramp of the ark cargo bay due to most of the ship being lodged into the rock of the mountainside, in actuality a dormant volcano. They passed through the large cargo bay, then through the rest of the ship, with jetfire acting as a very willing tour guide. Though it was all fascinating, it was far from what the prime was interested in. Finally they took an elevator up to a long hallway that opened into the command room, where the other residents were gathered. Nightbird sat alone on an old console, brooding; transmutate and Autobot X stood together beside an old conference table. Rampage stood in the shadows in the corner of the room, menacing and repellant in appearance. Flamesnort, who looked like a massive mechanical reptile, was curled up in the corner in oblivious recharge. But the true target of snowstorms investigation were standing grouped together to the left of the room; the dinobots; they were large, a bit bigger than astrotrain but clearly stronger. As she remembered, there had been an original trio of dinobots constructed, and then a secondary trio of reserve members. The original group had perished in a forgotten battle during the war, the remaining three remained aligned with the autbots until it's end before striking out on their own. She had read their stats and profiles the previous night, making it easy to recognize them. There was large and famously bad tempered snarl, who had become the de-facto head of the trio after the death of the legendary Grimlock. There was also the more friendly flyer swoop and the silent and reserved Slash. They certainly did live up to their reputation, looking like a real tough bunch; snarl and swoop stood taller than the prime, though slash was a deal shorter than them and even her. Surprising though was a min-con sized bot wearing a decepticon symbol standing over by the sleeping flamesnort.

"I beleive you know most of the bots here already, and this here is nickel; she moved in with us not to long ago" jetfire spoke up

"hm, small prime" snarl growled, unimpressed

The other two dinobots made varying noises of agreement.

She had grown tired of the charade and of other bots constantly judging her.

"I'm sorry to spoil this visit but the reason we are here is that we are investigating a series of murders" snowstorm spoke up

"wow, right to the point, nice" astrotrain smirked

That comment got the rooms full attention. All of the exiles eyes turned to ramapage instinctively, given his history. He shook his head, denying credit; he was always open about his atrocities, if he had done it, he would have admitted it.

"wait, what! Then why come here, are you actually saying we are suspect?" jetfire said defensively

"not all of you, and not officially" drift tried to make peace

"the first two murders were committed by an unknown assailant using a bladed weapon. All users within the city have been investigated and cleared. However, we do have 4 blade wielders here that needed to be checked"

Snarl stomped forward to within a few feet of the prime and glared down at her.

"you want my sword" he growled

Team prime stepped forward defensively but a hand gesture from snowstorm told them to stand back. The other ark bots likewise moved forward and tensed in case of a fight. She glared right back up at him intently. The last two days had really tested her qualifications as a prime and she was daring to believe she may actually be one. She was not going to let her resolve melt away now, not after the deaths and everything she was giving to this city and its people; and if she was gonna have to get trashed by a moody dinobot for them, then she would.

"turn over your sword for inspection, now!" she said in firm strong voice

Snarl continued to stare down, unmoving for almost a minute before her drew the sword menacingly. All eyes darted about nervously; hands were ready on triggers and weapon handles. He brought the sword over his head to strike, but instead twirled the handle is his hands and leaned downward and slowly handed it to her.

"stubborn, snarl like that" he growled

"I bet"

The sword was scanned and compared, as were swoops, slashs and nighbirds blades; all came up as negative matches to the wounds of the deceased. All bots were also confirmed as being within the perimeter of the mountain at the time of the murders. she never got to see sky lynx, who she was told recharged in a larger cavern of the mountain due to his size. With another dead end hit, goodbyes were exchanged and team prime headed out. Snarl however stopped her at the ship exit.

"wait, snarl want you to know, of all primes he seen…"

"yeah yeah, living up to the title, I've heard it"

"actually, wanna say you smallest of primes he know"

"oh"

"but pretty tough too"

"thanks, take care of things here ok"

She transformed and led her team back toward the city. Snarl, joined by jetfire, watched as they winded around the mountain road. With only the slightest glance over his shoulder, snarl could detect nightbird hiding in the shadows, as she usually did.

"follow her" jetfire ordered


	5. Chapter 5

At had been nearly a month since the murder of bulkhead and slipstream. Since primes visit to the ark, no further leads had presented themselves. Though investigation continued, the case had hit a regrettable dead end. Under the circumstances, snowstorm had been forced to return to her post and usual duties as life in the city returned to relative normal.

Nightbird, who had been tasked with following the prime, had, unknown to all, vanished after her first week of the task, having been seized by two unknown assailants in the shadows in which she usually took solace. Astrotrain and riptide had both chosen to remain as part of primes entourage, the former out of boredom and the latter for lack of better career options.

The prime had, in her failure to find justice for the dead, fell into an even more disheartened embrace of her position. She rarely attended the council meetings and when she did, she paid little attention. The most resent one she had barely kept her attention to hear the latest population reports. According to the most recent census, the City was occupied by roughly 6'000 colonists, 130 autoboots, 102 decepticons and was estimated to have between 150-200 unregistered or illegal bots flying under the radar.

She no longer took part in her training exercises. She could no longer even take solitude in labor any longer, even as the city was gripped in an intense winter. For a time she thought only of the investigation and what may have been missed or overlooked. When nothing could be deduced, depression began to set in the prime. The only fact that seemed out of the ordinary but otherwise unimportant was perceptors diagnosis that slipstream was in fact a clone. His autopsy revealed that she was in fact a clone sparked from the CNA and diagnostics of the decepticon starscream. She imagined that was one of the details she had left before hearing after nightbeats death.

An occasion soon arose that snowstorm could not avoid and needed to put on her best face for; as prime she was expected to make an appearance. She arrived at the mid-town function hall with her entourage. As an added safety precaution, given recent events, the council had added their special security detail to watch over the occasion. As such, the six-changers Quickswitch and Sixknight acted as guards at the halls entrance. Through the door, they met the large beast-bot Grimwing, who acted as the usher and directed them in. One other virtue the cybetronians had learned from the humans was the act of creating a ceremony and celebration built around the union of two beings. The humans knew this as a marriage, while in transformer society is was known as making one your Conjunx Endura. They were attending the ceremony to commemorate the union of Firestar and Flareup. The latter was much younger and had been the subordinate and trainee of the former during the war.

Prime looked over a program that detailed the pairs Conjunx Ritus; four acts of affection and mutual kindness which typically cement the bond between the two individuals and precede the actual partnership. The four acts were also described; firestar rescuing the rookie firestar during a battle, her taking flareup as her squad trainee, flareup saving a critically wounded firestar by donating her energon and a moment of passion when the two opened their spark chambers to each other. The affection and tenderness of the whole affair gave snowstorm some piece of mind and something to finally be happy about. She walked about and mingled, nodding to those who noticed her and made small talk with others. She took note of the other council members scattered about, as they did her. Conjunx Enduras were still not a very common things so such an occasion was a celebrated one. Other similarly bonded couples were also in attendance for support; the popular autobot couple of chromedome and rewind, colonist lightbright and decepticon sparkstalker and autobot downshift and the refuge joyride. She remembered also hearing while at the security HQ that barricade and swift, both decepticons, were in a relationship and considering the ceremony.

Pyra Magna, a colonist and a figure well known in the religious circles, acted as the officiator of the rites and ceremony itself. Snowstorm enjoyed it all until it reminded her of bulkhead and slipstream. Would they have done the same; had their own happy and celebrated day. No one would know now; that future was stolen from them, and she failed to avenge them. Falling into her depression again, she planned to slip away unnoticed during the after party. before she could she was interrupted by someone calling her name.

"good to see you ice inferno" the aged femme said

She was shocked to see Tempora; the elder, leader and her mentor from her home colony. She maintained a detached tone and look. Snowstorm frowned, sensing a tension that had existed since she took office.

"tempora, it is so very good to see you. You are a fresh light in a dark time"

"politics not what you thought" she said dismissively

Despite it not being her choice to become a leader, tempora always seemed to hold snowstorm becoming prime against her like it was. She seemed somehow disappointed in her for some reason. Seeing as the conversation would be no less awkward or uncomfortable as those with her other former friends and family, she quickly excused herself. Giving her entourage the slip, she left the party. She walked the street with nothing but her failures, responsibilities and insecurities to keep her company. Her concerns were not helped by witnessing a crowd flock to the pontificating of the vagrant Quillfire. The squat, spiked bot was a notorious anarchist who often spouted his anti-establishment rhetoric to those willing, and unwilling, to listen. The fact that he was currently denouncing her failed leadership was not a spirit lifter. Seeking someway to alleviate her mood, she made for the city's grand archive. The front desk was currently manned by a hovering diagnostic drone, and she realized she could not recall what bot actually was the head of the archive.

"welcome to the little cybertron grand archive, where knowledge is but the click of a button away" the drone recited with courtesy and artificial happiness.

"Um, hi. Not sure exactly what I want to read" she thought aloud

"may I suggest some of our most popular readings; "Me and Optimus Prime", "Curse You Megatron: The Tragic Life of a Mistreated Seeker", "Ancient Cybetronian History", "The Necronimicon Unicronus", "Quintessons and How to Protect Your Family From Them", "Best Recipes for Cesium salami", "Earth Germs"…"

"uh…cloning" she interrupted

Slipstream had again popped into her mind and she thought to investigate the subject a bit to alleviate her boredom. The drone led her to a kiosk and away after he activated it for her. Various articles and descriptions on the science and history of the subject popped up on the screen which she scanned through. It was not fairly common but had seen its fair use during the war for a multitude of reasons; troop building, twisted experimentation, genuine science and other various causes. When she came to the part that described bots that had experience in the field, she realized she recognized two; the decepticons blackarachina and scorponok. Recalling that she had seen them at soundblasters place, together, and that they seemed even sketchier than the standard cons. Finding it more than a coincidence, she thought it may be worth looking into. Leaving and heading off for the decepticon bar, she chose not to contact the others, wanting them to enjoy the party. She arrived and gained entrance again with the password. This time the various cons that were there paid her less attention; blackout even gave her a respectful nod. She had made a few other brief visits during the investigation and was considered a regular. She sat at the bar beside her drinking buddy sky-byte though realized he was passed out drunk on the counter top. She waited for soundblaster to come out, though it took a long time, very unusual for the owner and bartender, as he always knew when she arrived via surveillance. He seemed shocked and caught off guard when he saw her there.

"prime, what are you doing here?"

"I actually had some questions about a pair of your patrons"

He composed himself and inquisited who she referred to.

"blackarachnia and scorponok"

"hm, an ambiguous pair. I admit they are decepticons that I do not know much about. They appear very rarely and are not open about their affairs. If I'm being honest I do not consider them trustworthy bots. What is your interest in them?

"I discovered that the pair had a history of work in the field of cloning"

"I see, I take it you know about slipstream then?"

"I do, and you do as well?"

"I was there when she was created, and no, neither scorponok nor blackarachnia were part of her genesis"

"and how did you feel about her?"

"I have no real opinion either way regarding clones. I was far from supportive of having another starscream in the universe, but she did prove to be a more valuable decepticon and to possess her own personality, independent from his. I valued her as a comrade"

Soundwave took pause and appeared to be in deep thought. He gestured for her to follow him to a back room. She saw a large tarp covering something and grew nervous when she noticed spats of energon.

"dark designs appear to be afoot and I fear they are all interconnected"

Igor took hold of the tarp and handed it to soundblaster and with a jerk of his arm he pulled it aside. Snowstorm gaped in horror at the scattered and mutilated remains of a black and green bot. Had sounblaster killed the bot and looked for her aid in hiding it or clearing any charge against him. She instinctively began reaching for her ion cannon when he spoke up.

"this was lockdown. He was a renowned mercenary and bounty hunter and one of the most skilled and deadly bots in the galaxy. My associates found him like this last night. I know no bot online today that could overcome him like this"

As she relaxed and examined the body, she took note of some features such as the hook appendage, a trait famously related to him that she knew of. She had no idea he was even in the city, recalling the earlier report of illegal bots present in the city.

"do you have any theories?" she asked

"unfortunately yes. He had arrived in the city over a year ago delivering apparently sensitive cargo on a job he had been hired for. Steeljaw, another decepticon he was close with, mentioned he had recently returned with more cargo for the one who originally hired him and was connected to the first job apparently"

"what was this cargo he was delivering?"

"He did not mention but it was implied to be of great importance"

"and did he mention who he was hired by?"

"Flamewar"

"I am not familiar with them"

"be glad you are not. I am a bot famous for my loyalty, and even I would have to call flamewar a fanatic. She was stealthy, intelligent and skilled, but also murderous, obsessive and zealously loyal to megatron. I believe in her own twisted way she may have even loved him"

"and this worries you?"

"Affirmative. I had no idea flamewar was even still functioning, more so on earth at all. That is a rather egregious gap in information by my standards"

"and her involvement in all this is your hypothesis?"

"it is unmistakable. She held such blind devotion to even the most ludicrous or severe of megatrons beliefs and took his death and the subsiding of the war, lets shall we say, badly"

"and you didn't?"

"I…moved on, accepted it in my own way. I hold the decepticon ideals and what megatron stood for in my spark still, but life still goes on. Regardless, the death of an inter faction couple seems very in character for her as well"

"so we may at last have our culprit, we just have to find her, and whatever lockdown retrieved for her must obviously be significant enough that she was willing to kill him to keep it secret"

"indeed. It would seem some pieces are finally coming together"

"thank you soundblaster"

She left the bar and made to meet with jazz and the others and move to investigate the new lead. She was nervous but exhilerated that she finally ahd a new direction in which to to look. Lost in thought, she rounded a corner and was suddenly tackled from behind. She rolled along the ground and heard a frenzied shout as she looked up. She saw that her attacker was a bot of grey and light blue; the wings and cockpit clearly indicated he was a flyer. He looked mad, unhinged; he had a crazed look about him to the point of not even looking focused. In his hand he clutched a sword tightly. She then recognized him as megaplex, the rookie officer that had gone missing. Before she could react or say anything he pounced on her, struggling and snarling madly as he scratched and banged at her armor. She got hold of her weapon but he was so close she could not use it. she cried out in pain as he managed to dig the tip of the blad epart way in her arm. Gaining brief movement in the midst of his frenzied assault, she got her legs up and kicked him away. He recovered quickly and charged at her again, snarling and with his bade posed for a stabbing strike. Aiming, she instinctively fired three shots into the attacker without thinking. The blasts echoed on forever in the quite city. All three shots pierced through his torso and with the momentum of his charge he fell hard, face first to the pavement. He lay there, unmoving and leaking energon. She felt overwhelmed, and was in utter shock; she was losing energon as well from his assault. She radioed for aid but in her daze couldn't recall who she called or what exactly she said. She began to black out, only remembering seeing the eyes of weary civilians investigating and the blurry image of soundblaster, blackout and sky-byte rushing to her aid before losing consciousness.


	6. Chapter 6

It had been a week since the death of megaplex and the city had returned to normal. Snowstorm had mostly recovered from her injuries and suffered through the trials of her new celebrity status, now hailed as prime and as the bot who took down the murderer. She had endured the emotional stress of the attack, compounded with the many parades, interviews and speeches the past week had condemned her to. The case regarding the murders had been officially closed, as the blade megaplex had was confirmed to be the one that killed bulkhead and slipstream, and his crazed state seemed to match the state nightbeat was found in; there was not much else to say about the matter. Though in the primes mind there were still questions nagging. If it was simply megaplex conducting he murders, then what of flamewar, and lockdown and all the other factors she uncovered; soundblaster seemed convinced they were connected and so did she. She shared none of her concerns with jazz or her team but knew they mattered. So much evidence pointed to a larger conspiracy, and yet when she was drawing ever closer to a conclusion, an insane culprit simply appears and ends it all. She was no detective but she knew there was more to it. Somehow she could feel it, maybe through the matrix or just her own intuition; this was not over.

She was interrupted from her thoughts when the light green colored paradronian nurse motioned that she was clear to leave. She thanked her and left, happy that this would be the last of her medical follow ups for the time being. She grunted as she went to leave, her shoulder plows again causing her to briefly jam in the doorway, earning a giggle from the nurse. She had suffered some injuries in the attack, though the worst of it had been a bad blow to the head and trauma to her arm, which had just come out of its support sling. Having dismissed her support staff and finding surprising lull from the "adoring" public, she went for a walk to clear her head. She did not want to drive, as transforming still made her arm hurt. She walked for some time, alternating between admiring the everyday life other bots could enjoy and returning to her grave suspicions.

"hey watch it lady, this is a work zone!" a voice growled

She jumped back at the shock of the short green bot in front of her. She looked up and realized she was indeed at the border of a work zone. A large number of constructicons were building what looked to her like a new habitation complex. The city was sure expanding if they still needed more hab suits. The constructions, she remembered, were originally a decepticon sub-group, but had since grown into a master work force for the city. It had recruited many a talented autobots and colonists into its fold, all of which had been repainted with the groups signature green and purple color scheme. She thought back and believed that bulkhead himself may have also been a member.

"I said move along lady, nobody messes with dirtboss' projects" the squat fork lift lectured

She witnessed with awe as the primary group combined into their famous gestalt mode, Devastator. It was her first time seeing a combiner in person and the second hand accounts did not describe their magnificence justly. The prime watched as the massive bot lifted an entire section of levels up onto the already constructed section of the building. Content, she moved along with a smile at the sight, happy to see bots united in building, working towards progress. She was ever grateful she had been far away from the centuries of death, destruction and war their race had degraded itself to.

"snowstorm prime, please come in" her comm came alive

"this is prime, what is it perceptor?"

"please come to the science guild immediately, I have an urgent matter to discuss with you"

"oh primus, what now" she worried

She pushed aside the pain and transformed to hurry along, thankful that it wasn't rush hour. It was unlike the autobot scientist to sound so alarmed; she figured it must have been important. She arrived and was led into a laboratory where perceptor, brainstorm, proxima and brains all stood with concerned faces. She was shocked to see that on the examination table at the rooms center was the lifeless body of megablex. Seeing the bot who had killed so many and tried to do the same to her, and who she had herself offlined, sent an uncomfortable chill through her spark.

"what is this?" she demanded

"prime, upon examination of megaplex, we have made a grave discovery; he too is a clone" perceptor reported

"what?!"

"not one so advanced and developed as slipstream or others but a clone all the same" proxima added

"we believe his madness may have stemmed from his cloning process being…lets say, inadequate or incomplete" brains spoke up

"However, that is not the most disturbing part. That part is the source of his data"

"what is the source of his data?" She prodded

"megatron" perceptor said flatly

"what did you say?"

"yes. Of course you know megatron was the decepticon warlord, and he perished during the war"

"not completely at least" brains shrugged

"yes, well, by all indications, megaplex is undoubtedly a clone of megatron. All our examinations confirm the presence of his data, schematics and CNA. He even bears a shell program; "megaplex" likely being a false personality likely overshadowing the copy of the original"

Snowstorm was in awe and horror, she had to sit down. Names like optimus prime and megatron were like legends now. To bots like her they seemed so far and gone to be at times thought as but stories, never sure if they were real.

"do you have any more good news for me? Maybe that the high council are all pretenders, or thunderwing the mad is coming to visit, or maybe that unicron the destroyer is hiding in the earth. Hm?"

"no, nothing like that. Those are just absurd" perceptor shrugged

"however, megapex did seem to have a high amount of condensation in his circuits" brainstorm added

"condensation?"

"indeed, he must have been hiding out somewhere with a lot of moisture" proxima said

"ok...thank you, all of you. I will take this into consideration and see what to do next. Please ensure this information is kept secret and the "remains" are extremely secured"

After they all agreed she left, still in bit of a daze after such a bombshell. From an unseen position, three bots watched her intently from the shadows, interested in her sudden mood change. All these things just kept running through her mind, fractured and broken, when suddenly she remembered one thing soundblaster had said to her when he told her of flamewar.

"and she was zealously loyal to megatron" his synthesized voice echoed in her processor.

She froze mid step and gaped at the air; with that, she understood. Everything made sense and she finally saw the big picture for what it was. To confirm her suspicions she quickly opened public records, which as prime she had full access to, and scrolled through the secure files. She finally found exactly what she was looking for.

"YES, YES that's it! This is snowstorm prime, all members of team prime, head for the river immediately. Meet me en-route on route G2-92"

She transformed and sped off full speed through the city, ignoring the pain it caused her. Roughly ten minutes from the river, drift, lancer, astrotrain and riptide converged to form around her as they moved on. She had already informed them of the discoveries she had made and soundblasters, so they had most of the same information she had, she just had to put it together for them.

"what's this all about prime?" drift asked

"we're about to bring in the ones really responsible for these murders"

"what, but you already…" astrotrain started

"megaplex was a clone, perceptor just confirmed it. He was a defective clone of megatron. He may have done the killing but he was just a mad dog. If we want justice, we gotta bring down the bots who set him loose"

"megatron, holy slag" astrotrain replied in shock

"who?" riptide asked

The group then breached the last city block where it opened to the river's edge and transformed. Further down river to their left was the marina where the aquatic bots resided.

"I'm sorry, we don't get any of this prime" lancer frowned

She turned to them with a wide grin, proud to have worked it all out herself.

"don't you see, it all fits together now, it's all been one big machination. Flamewar snuck into the city undetected and set up shop and hired lockdown to deliver her megatrons samples to clone. She created megaplex with scorponok and blackarachnia, both having experience in the field. Then, when megaplex apparently started going haywire, they decided to try again. They rehired lockdown and he delivered them something, maybe more samples or equipment. To ensure their mission remained secret, they killed him or set megaplex to do it. And when I appeared to be learning to much, they set him on me, and whether I died or he did, their trail would likely be lost."

"Wow, heavy, very heavy" riptide gaped

"this is astounding prime" drift praised

"errr! wrong. We still haven't caught flamewar, and why are we here anyway?" astrotrain grimaced

"because our first clue was correct, the watery foot prints at the first murders. Megaplexs autopsy even confirmed he was near water to a great degree"

The others looked on confused, as they had already checked the river. The prime smiled confidently, and slowly turned her head in silence to look up river. The others looked right, following her gaze and saw her implication; the dam. A large facility and completely empty and automated save for a few maintenance workers. Prime led them as they walked, following the walkway along the river. Snowstorm caught sight of cliffjumper on patrol nearby and flagged him down. She ordered him back to security force base to have the team ready itself for a possible confrontation. She was annoyed to be told that jazz was off duty, visiting the other autobot vets, but knew either barricade or chromia would ensure her orders were followed and sent the small red bot off. She then pulled up the public records she had previously accessed to show the others.

"the head of maintenance for the dam was formerly Treadbolt…" she started

Pulled up on her screen was the bot, a large and bulky yellow and black femme.

"she went missing about a year ago, and this bot here, designation Flame, instantly applied for her position"

Another image popped up on her data pad, that of flame, and with another click, a decepticon registration image of flamewar appeared beside it. It was beyond obvious that they were the same bot, but as flame she had used an electronic paint job to appear mostly yellow. Her primary paint job however was primarily black with red highlight and flame details. a rather simple minded façade, and yet it worked.

"hm, pretty on the nose, yet no one caught it" lancer frowned

"with unlimited access to such a large and unmanned facility, it would indeed make for a perfect hiding spot for her operation" drift admitted

As they approached the damn, they were accosted by one of its security guards. He was a large, bulky green decepticon with a large dump truck alt mode; his stubby head looked tiny on his massive fame. The bot was questioned, since he could have very likely been in on the conspiracy, and dismissed while they investigated. While grouchy and a bit standoffish, he didn't seem suspicious; in fact, if he were polite it would have been more suspicious. It was amusing when they found his name was Long Haul, and that he had history of grief due to confusion with him and the notable constructicon. The team made their way to a utility entrance to the dam and used caution in investigating the facility. The first large room they inspected appeared to simply house the main components and workings of the dam, but lancer soon found an access tunnel to another area. Making their way down the corridor with stealth, they found it opened into another large chamber. The ground level was clearly a base and extensive laboratory, while above appeared to be countless shelves holding hundreds of stasis pods. Seeing no movement or activity, they moved further in. They eyed the various displays, notes and equipment about the room as they moved through it; it certainly had the makings of a cloning operation.

"holy slag!" riptide shouted while still trying to keep a hushed tone.

The others came around a table corner to what he was looking at. There lay the corpses of blackarachnia and scorponok, both decapitated and impaled through the spark. A pool of their mixed energon spread from the bodies and ran about the near area.

"by primus..." drift gawked

"and in a manner similar to nightbeat" the thought to himself

"obviously flamewar didn't want to risk anyone knowing what she was doing" snowstorm shook her head

"oh I wouldn't quite say that" came a foreign voice

They all whirled around, weapons at the ready, searching for its source. It was a male voice so it wasn't flamewar, but then who. Astrotrain alone felt like it sounded familiar. They moved as a unit, coming around a corner to what looked like an odd piece of equipment on a pedestal. Under which, in a clear containment unit, was a contained spark. Suddenly a large single yellow light appeared in the center of the "equipment".

"greetings" it said in a calm accented voice

They all yelled and jumped back at its suddenly coming to life. Astrotrain recovered first and stepped forward, recognizing what he was seeing.

"shockwave?!"

"indeed" he said flatly

Perplexed, the others came to look closer. The "equipment" was in fact a disembodied head, simple and featureless; it was purple and rectangle in shape, with grey audio receptors on its sides and a blank, black visage save for the single yellow optic. It became clear upon inspection that the spark below was his own, persevered and connected to the head to allow communication.

"shockwave, I thought you got fried stellar cycles ago" astrotrain questioned

"as did I. I regained consciousness in this place a couple weeks ago. I was informed by my host that the explosion that supposedly killed me destroyed most of my body and rendered me in stasis lock. I was apparently recovered by autobot forces, who locked my husk in a high security storage facility to be forgotten. They learned of this facility and enlisted the aid of a 3rd party to infiltrate it and recover my remains"

"lockdown!" riptide thought aloud

"for what purpose?" prime grew weary

"my scientific expertise of course, and the return of the decepticon regime. Apparently the decepticons currently occupying the floor there had failed at whatever their task was. Once I had been returned to semi operational order and regained my senses, they were promptly disposed oooooooof…."

Shockwave trailed off as his voice fizzled down and his eye shrunk and shut off. Below, a stasis field activated around his spark, rendering him unconscious and inactive.

"he talks to much" a female voice came from behind.

The group spun around, weapons ready and trained on their target, the holder of shockwave and megaplexs collars and the mastermind of their troubles; flamewar.


	7. Chapter 7

There stood flamewar, a massive crossbow blaster in one hand in in the other, the controller with which she had deactivated shockwave. She bore a passive sneer on her face with the slightest hint of a sadistic smirk; a clear sign of her mental state not running on all cylinders. More surprising was that she was flanked by the decepticons shatter and dropkick, both with weapons trained on them. When the prime had first met with soundblaster, she agreed to ensure the duo got fare treatment after getting arrested. As it turned out, they had been caught red handed in the act of running weapons. They escaped custody and after a fire fight managed to slip away and remain under the radar. Far from entertained or in a mood for a battle, astrotrain suddenly brought his two blasters to bare and fired two full power shots. Flamewar barely flinched as the shots struck their marks on her enforcers, sending them flying backwards like rag dolls. Both landed in heaps on the floor near the rear wall, smoking and deactivated. It was clear that a battle was to come but now the gauntlet had been cast. Flamewar simply glanced at the fallen warriors, turned back and stood there smirking, as if victory was already hers.

"it matters not; none of this, none of you, and none of them. The decepticons ultimate victory is destined to come"

"I don't think so crazy. I, snowstorm prime, leader and protector of this city and its people, am placing you under arrest; we're shutting down your little experiment before it goes any further" she threatened

"ooooh, "prime" is it, pfft. But my dear, it has already come so far already"

She smiled sadistically and raised her arms upwards in a grand, horrifying gesture. They all soon realized the terrible truth; all those hundreds of stasis pods above were more failed clones, a legion of megaplex.

"me and those fools spent a lot of time attempting to perfect our…process, but every one was a failure. 386 total failed attempts to revive the great megatron. The megaplex you knew of was the most recent and successful, for a time that is. That iteration failed when, between my teachings and part of his shell program failing, he lashed out and killed that filthy degenerate couple"

"their names were bulkhead and slipstream" prime glared with fury

"I care not, they died and they deserved to die. From there, despite our best efforts, his shell program and sanity began to deteriorate like all the rest. We extracted him from his deep cover in the security force, but when that autobot detective caught our trail, I offlined him myself. I realized my associates were ill equipped for the task I desired. The fools even sealed their own fate by being the ones to tell me of shockwaves post-war condition. After I got that worthless bounty hunter to get his remains, I figured as many loose ends had to be tied up as possible. I terminated him in a way to look like the clone had done it then sent him after you to end the last threat. Yet sadly here you are. That failure couldn't even succeed at his final task. Ah well, the next will be better, he will be perfect; he will be...megatron"

"I wonder how many time she's said that" riptide whispered to lancer

"with a master scientist like shockwave here, I'm sure the process will be perfected in no time. However, to achive that task in privacy and move on to the future, I realize now how the past must be utterly destroyed; wipe clean the slate. You will all die, horribly, and this city will burn and from its ashes, the new decepticon empire will be reborn"

"and how you think you're gonna pull that off alone?" astrotrain mocked

She pressed another button on her remote and dropped it and her weapon. saistfied. She stood with a sadistic smiled and raised her arms again. The massive room was suddenly filled with alarms and warning beeps, the clanging of hundreds of pod latches unsealing. From the many pods above the swarm of mad and feral clones began to drop to the floor in every direction, snarling and yelling incoherently.

"slag, fall back, run, get out!" snowstorm ordered

They took flight for the exit, the only thing they could hear beyond the thundering of the clone horde was flamewars maniacal laughter.

"cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war!" she cried out

"jazz, come in jazz!"

"I'm here prime, what…"

"get all forces to the riverfront now. Every armed bot you can, the city is about to be under siege!"

She terminated the call, not waiting to hear his questions or objections. He had his orders and he would follow them; after all, she needed both hands to fire on the approaching clones. Luckily, jazz was still meeting with the other autobots in "little iacon" and it took little convincing for his old friends, war forged old autobots looking for a good fight, to join him. Team prime alternated between running and firing to keep the clones at bay. By the time they reached the end of the utility tunnel they had only taken down about 20 of the abominations, each one having thick armor. They rushed out and shut the large metal door and rushed away, knowing it would be easily breached in seconds.

Unfortunately that was when long haul made his return, scolding the group for their apparently unruly behavior. In the midst of their shouts for him to get clear the wall around the utility entrance shattered, spilling the frenzied clones onto the ground. In shock, long haul backed away as he was beset by some of the recovering clones. He activated missile launchers in his arms and opened fire, blasting a group and madly bashing the ones that got to close to him. There were however too many and he was soon overwhelmed. Panicked as they assaulted his armor, long haul stumbled backwards, falling over the guard rail. He, and the three clones still clinging to him, fell over the edge along the water spewing from the dam into the river below, his fate unknown.

The group continued to back up and fire continuously as the clones advanced, their blind fury apparently only overshadowed by their madness. Suddenly prime caught site of shadows overhead; three figures had leapt from one of the nearby building and entered the fray. Cutting down the clones around them, they bought team prime some time to breath and reset themselves.

"this is snowstorm prime to playback"

"playback here prime, how may i…"

"I am issuing a priority one alert on the city. I want the city locked down and all citizens advised to remain indoors or reach emergency bunkers. Broadcast it now, on all frequencies"

"as you command" he responded

Indeed playback sent out the signal and the city went into its emergency protocols.

"prime, what is the meaning of this, why is the city going into lockdown?" windblade demanded over the comm

"the city is in danger, I cannot explain now, remain in the command center"

She suddenly cut the call and radioed another call to the command center.

"tailgate, blitzwing, lock down the command center now and protect the council at all costs, prime out"

As she finished, she could finally see who their aid had come from; it was spittor, snowcat and nightbird. Spittor, after being inspired by the primes previous kindness to him, had chosen to watch her back from a distance. He had recruited the other two bots to aid him based on snowcats meeting with her and nightbirds task by jetfire. Nightbird had in fact, moments ago, sent a request to her fellow earth bots for aid with the crisis. Team prime and their new allies backed from the horde, growing larger and larger as more spilled from the dam. Their backs to the city, they were all that stood between it and possible destruction. Suddenly a wave of fire spontaneously erupted to the left, engulfing the clones on the far right flank and through it burst the three dinobots. They smashed, clawed and bashed the clones before them before transforming and entering a mad melee. Streaking above providing cover wire was jetfire in his shuttle mode. Scores of the clones, still capable of transformation, took to their jet modes and rose up to accost him.

"security force attack!" a voice shouted

Behind team prime, the security forces, as well as jazz and the autobot war horses, had arrived. On jazz's orders, they formed into a solid firing line along the edge of the city limit. They opened fire with everything they had to bring down the violent mass of clones. The clones advanced, attempting to swarm and terminate all the adversaries that had risen against them. Some would come to close or breach the firing line and be forced to be dealt with hand to hand, at which they were at their most dangerous. As the clones bore down more and threatened to overwhelm the security forces, they were suddenly joined again. Looking to his left, jazz saw that a new party had arrived to join the protective wall for the city; a mob of decepticons, led by sounblaster. Still as prominent at his trade, the decepticon officer had intercepted the primes communications and rallied as many of his comarades to fight. From behind the armed forces, blaster, reflector and other media professionals had congregated to broadcast the battle.

The combined strength of the security force, autobots and decepticons proved to be the needed drive to turn the tide, and the clones began to dwindle in number. Soundblaster, to the shock of many, joined the fray personally. With the click of a button, he had reformed his life support chair into a massive battle armor that wrapped around his damaged body. He charged forward alone, crushing and blasting every clone that crossed his path. On her request, the expanded team prime pushed through the clones, making their way back towards the dam. She had realized that with all this happening, flamewar could easily slip away; she could hide and start this all again. She would not let that happen, not let her city or people be at risk again. The aquatic bots, having seen the raging battle, had made their way up the river to add their own firepower. From the safety of the water they rained death up into the skies, taking out the airborne clones, their flaming and broken bodies raining onto the battle field.

Flamewar, confident in her victory, had come to watch the slaughter from the dams top. She now stood scowling, fuming in her hatred at the utter failure of her plans. She turned to take her leave, intending to collect shockwave and the needed materials to start again from a more secure location.

"perhaps the depths of trypticons husk will prove an ideal home" she thought

As she turned away she heard a furious battle cry as she saw snowstorm charge her. As far more battle hardened and skilled as flamewar was, the weight of the bulkier femme tackling her was more than she could handle. Both went over the edge and tumbled along the slanted side of the damn until they hit the ground back down on the courtyard. Both had just narrowly missed going over the edge along the water fall; a almost fatal plunge.

"prime?!" drift shouted from above

Both taking a moment to recover, they rose and glared at each other. Having lost her blaster in the fall, flamewar unsheathed blades in her forearms and attacked. Snowstorm was not that fast or skilled and could barely dodge the blade swipes. She received multiple cuts and slashes in her armor but managed to evade any mortal strikes. Managing to get hold of her gun from her back, she brought it about and clubbed the enemy bot hard across the head with it. With the decepticon dazed, prime kicked her in the dissection to put some distance between them. Rolling back to her feet and regaining her senses, flamewar looked up to see the prime with her gun trained on her.

"you don't have the bolts for it" she challenged

"try me" she frowned back

"kill me then, but the decepticon dream does not end with me, I have ensured to that" the decepticon smiled

"the decepticons can have their dreams, and so can the autoboots, and all the other bots here. That's what this city is; a dream made real, one of equality. But bots like you just want to tear it down for some outdated rhetoric. The universe has evolved, and there's no room for bots like you anymore"

"hm, then do it" she sneered

The prime tensed as if to fire then relaxed her grip.

"I'm not like you, I'm not a killer"

Snowstorm stood aside and before she could respond, flamewar saw a massive fist from behind the prime barrel right at her. Striking her right in the face, she was flung backwards into the dam wall hard. Cracking at her impact, she remained imbedded in it for a few seconds before falling to ground uncountious as bits of concrete and medal fall around her. Snowstorm turned to the assaulter and smiled.

"thank you soundblaster"

"my pleasure" he said flatly

And with that, the city was silent; the last of the megaplex clones had been terminated and the battle was won. It was far from an easy victory and they had suffered casualties of their own; springer, pipes, cliffjumper, Dust Up, vortex and some of the colonist officers had been killed in the battle. Among the civilian autobots and decepticons they had lost kup, whirl, star saber, roadbuster, tankor, dirge, thrust, slugslinger and diabla. With the battles end the many groups broke apart; the aquatic bots returned to their own territory, as did jetfire and the dinobots. Nightbird declined rejoining them, as she and her new teammates had been offered to join team prime. Prime put in the call to end the lock down and soon emergency and labor crews were on the scene. All bots worked to dispose of the clones, repair the damage and gets things back to normal. The autobots and decepticons added their help to the efforts, which did prime spark good to see them all working together towards one goal. Just like what she said to flamewar; that was the dream this city represented. The news crews of course made their way to get the scoop on all that had happened. Still not brave enough to face them, she pushed the spotlight to her team, who enjoyed the attention and publicity.

With the moment of piece, she walked along the edge of the walkway overlooking the river. With the inclusion of its new members, she intends to reform team prime to act as a special operation unit to deal with more serious threats posed to the city. She, never having been part of it, believed war to be unnecessary but the trials she has faced in these last few weeks had proven that one must always have a strong sword as well as shield.

"did I really do it, did this really work out. Is this what it feels like to be…a prime" she thought


	8. Chapter 8

With the crisis averted, and justice found, the city returned to ordinary life, but somehow better. A new comradery and unity seemed to now radiate amongst the populace now, and it made the prime smile whenever she saw examples of it. She saw a massive decepticon defend two young protoforms from a falling billboard, a couple of colonists help an old autobot with some heavy packages, and she even heard whispers of another autobot/decepticon couple having formed, though she did not know who. Even autobots like bumblebee, ratchet, road rage, hound, skids and others who were well known and had chosen to live with the humans had come to city to aid in reconstruction. On theirs and the councils advice, snowstorm had chosen to reopen relations with the humans and allow them access to the city again. She realized that as refugees on their world, she had no right to refuse their aid and companionship.

Snowstorm was nervous, as now, a few weeks after the dam battle, a celebration and honoring of her was to take place. To take her mind off of it in the preceding days, she chose to visit and inspect the new prison facility. Unlike the incarceration cells of the security force, this was unfortunately the first permanent detention center in the city. At present it had 9 inmates: there was of coarse flamewar, who remained in solitary confinement. Shatter and dropkick, who had survived the dam battle, had also been repaired and locked up. Decepticons steeljaw, scatterspike and ramjet, as well as neutral beast-bot terrorsaur and mini-con despensor were also discovered to be collaborators of flamewars. Unfortunately the final inmate was long haul, who had been pulled up from the river floor and revealed as another conspirator. By virtue of the discovery of purged security videos and his own confession, he had aided flamewar in securing the dam as a base. On her orders, he had persued a romance with the maintenance officer treadbolt, and passed what info she had to flamewar. Though he did not aid or want it, as he had developed real feelings for the autobot, flamewar murdered treadbolt to secure her position and he reluctantly dumped her frame in the river. He then posed as the security guard of the dam to ward off intruders. He admitted he had no idea of her horrific agenda, thinking she was just looking to remain off the grid. He believed the many megaplexs he saw were a single bot associated with her. Despite his supposedly sad story, he was still an accomplice and prime had him imprisoned all the same.

As no evidence, that could be found, pointed to shockwave having contributed to flamewar's operations yet, prime chose not to hold any charges on him. Though he had an infamous past, he would be allowed a chance at a clean start in the city like all autobots and decepticons. As the science guild, who had been giving the task of disposing or recycling the clones, were best equipped for it, she had shockwave turned over to them. She was fairly confident that they would take good care of a fellow bot of science. The dam and lab had been fully stripped and under constant guard. Paranoid about what secrets may yet still be hidden, she insisted that routine checks for anything further in the facility be conducted.

She had returned to the command center and waited in an empty hall to be called out to the stage in front of the building. She felt ridiculous looking, as additional paint applications had been added to her armor for the occasion, per the request of pyra magna and other religious members. The markings were apparently invocative of the past primes and considered sacred and hallowed; how could she have refused under the circumstances. The crowd, she was told, was practically the entire city pollution, which she found shocking; even human representatives were in attendance. Tailgate and the decepticon scrapmetal finished prepping her on the proceedings before rushing out to wait to give her the exit signal. Lost in her nervous thoughts, the introduction speeches by windblade and jazz sounded like distant mumbling. She also did not register the approach of another bot from the other end of the hallway until they were right upon her.

"greetings prime" the bot spoke cordially

Startled, she jumped back; the bot before her was purple and black and, being a few heads taller, peered down at her. She then realized by his face, or lack thereof, that it was shockwave, rebuilt by the science guild. They, or he, had obviously got in an interesting design with his reconstruction. From his files, his original frame was boxy and standard, with one hand and one weapon/laser tool appendage. This new bot before her had a far more foreign and repellant visage. He was thin and lanky, and both hands bore three long pointed digits. He had chosen to still bear his decepticon symbol, which was imprinted proudly on his chest. His head was now stretched longer but still bore no features save for the single red optic peering at her and his audio receptors where now long and curved like horns. If one was seeking an appearance of a bot to not trust on first fight, this was it.

"I see you have noticed my reformatted form. I find it quite appealing don't you"

Somehow every word he spoke to her seemed to have some sort of condescending tone.

"yes, very efficient" she managed a smile

"I wanted to thank you personally for granting my pardon prime"

"not at all, you were at the time more a prisoner of flamewar after all"

"of course"

"damn, with a face like that I can't read him at all" the thought to herself

"will you be remaining with the science guild? I'm sure with your talents you would be welcome"

"I do not believe we share the same interests. I believe I will pursue my own itinerary for the time being"

"which would be?"

"ah ah, spoilers" he chirped

Realizing the bot may very well be looking to start more trouble and had been playing her, she readied to threaten him right back when she heard the sound of applause and saw tailgate waving her down.

"I'll leave you to your celebrations, until next we meet, prime..."

With that he turned and walked down the hall, but turned back to look at her over his shoulder before vanishing into the darkness.

"try to smile prime, this is your day after all. Do try to enjoy it"

His words were full of mockery and a hint of menace. Before she knew it he was gone.

"that is definitely a bot I have to keep and optic on" she thought aloud

Remembering it was her que, she ran out and froze as, to her awe, the wide street before her, full of bots of all makes, erupted in thunderous applause. She waved awkwardly, caught off guard by the overwhelming reaction. She looked down to see those of her colony at the front row, per her request. She had worried that it would be received badly by them, thinking it her way of rubbing her success in their faces. Beyond her wildest expectation, they cheered as well. The bots she thought she had lost; former friends, family, coworkers and people of her home, who meant the most to her, supporting her. Even tempora bore a genuine smile and waved to her, which she happily returned. To the primes left on stage were the council members, and to her right team prime. Flanking the podium were jazz and windblade and for a moment she thought she was meant to step forth. She stopped herself, remembering there would first be a guest speaker to honor her. Not knowing who it was, she was surprised to see soundblaster ascend the stage on his chair and move to its center. Unable to reach the microphone from his support chair, he simply used his natural abilities to amplify his voice to a similarly amplified tone.

"Transformers of new cyberttron; autobots, decepticons, colonists, neutrals and all in between. I have been a decepticon for a very long time; since the beginning. I fought optimus prime many a time, and he is considered the greatest prime to have lived. We have been forced to accept one who did not deserve the honor of being a prime; a nobody from nowhere, who had never held a blaster or given an order. She was without a doubt the worst bot to lead this refuge…"

"what the slag, this is what honoring is to a decepticon!" she thought and scowled

"…and, I believe we may all be the better for it. Optimus prime and others like him were great leaders who commanded respect from their soldiers. We now have prime who has proven herself a leader and who has instead earned ours. Not since the early years of the golden age of cybertron have I seen a prime unite so many varying bots as now. For a better and brighter future, it is clear that it is snowstorm prime who shall guide us there"

Once again the city erupted into applause that shook the earth and sky. Soundblaster moved aside and bid the prime to approach. Nervous but overwhelmed with emotion, she walked forward, returning the smiles jazz and windblade gave her as she passed them. Reaching the front, she reached out and exchanged a heartfelt handshake with soundblaster, who moved back to join the others. She was unsure of what to say, what could be said following a speech like that.

"thank you, thank you so much. Thank you to my team, to the council, and to all of you, for trusting in me even when I didn't trust myself. I truly don't know if being a prime is in my programming but if that means leading and protecting this amazing city and all of you on this beautiful world, than like the many primes before me, I accept that burden and honor with all that I am…"

Having read a certain phrase that had apparently been used as a rallying cry by past primes, she figured she might as well try it.

"till all are one!"

Again, louder and harder than ever the people cheered. She waved, unable to hide the big smile on her face. After some hours the celebration eventually wound down and the other bots on stage came together to conversate. Jazz came up to shake her hand.

"nice touch at the end there" he smiled

"Affirmative" soundblaster added

Choosing to let old grudges die and the future be embraced, the two bots, likely the highest ranking remaining from each side, shook hands, in their minds effectively ending the war. The peace and unity did endure in the coming weeks and life continued as it once was. Snowstorm prime however now had embraced her role fully and whole-sparkedly. She sat with the council again, fully attentive and presiding over the proceedings. However, she did excuse herself, almost by instinct, upon seeing out the window that snow had begun to again fall on the city. The council suddenly realized that once again sitting in the primes seat was an eager looking tailgate.

Dismissing team prime for the day, she went outside to meet her new charges. Two annoyed looking bots waited at the head where the city's main road met the command center. One was Mudflap, a tall, rebellious blue crane bot; he had a history of being an autobot, then a decepticon and finally a rogue. The other was Skipjack, a red, sociopathic decepticon bulldozer. He had a peculiar body build, hunched and with a repulsive head on a long neck; his treads extended past his arms and hung like whips. Rather than legs, his lower half tapered into a single spring-like limb, which he balanced on when standing and bounced on to move. Both now laborers, they were the city workers that she had previously sentenced to additional shifts due to their subpar performances. She had chosen to take both under her command when she partook in the labor.

"alright bots, let's get in a good hard days work"

The two looked at each other with apprehension but, not wanting to argue with the prime, transformed and started into their duty. Content, snowstorm turned to look at the monument that she had personally commissioned be erected in the command center court yard. At its base were inscribed the names of all the bots who gave their sparks in the battle with the megaplex clones. Above was erected a large sculpture of slipstream and bulkhead, hand in hand and both bearing their faction logos. It represented the unity this city would forever more be founded on. She smiled and kicked the snow playfully, ready to do some work, the kind that gave the old Ice Inferno in her peace.

The End, for now.

**That's it for now, big thanks to Jackspicerchase on deviatntart whose OC Inspired me to wright this fic. I do have a basic outline for a sequel about "you know who" causing mayhem but I'll wait to see how this is received first. Thanks for reading and please comment and review.**


	9. Chapter 9

It has been over a year since the crisis of the cloning conspiracy and flamewars imprisonment. In the wake of a long stretch of peace and harmony in new cybertron, a new threat appeared to be rearing its head. Only a few days ago, a mysterious message was broadcast to the city, by megatron himself by all indications. Spouting the age old rhetoric of "peace through tyranny" and "equality through force", it was a call to arms of reforming the decepticons. The council, weary of what this may incite, convened an emergency session.

"what we know is that the signal is of unknown origin and is cleary intended to invoke megatrons image" windblade reported

"playback has reported that the communication network was not hacked or compromised, and that the broadcast was from a strong, outside signal" sandstorm added

"lickety split, away we go" wreck-gar smiled

"indeedy dee, something wicked this way comes" rum-maj agreed

And we are sure Soundwave was not involved? All of this seems very clearly like his work" hotshot accused

"as is supposed to be. It is too obvious that it would be him. It is meant to mislead us" obsidian countered

"agreed, I have already spoken with soundblaster, and he is not responsible. He has given me his word which, as a friend, I take. He has declared that he will not answer the call and had sought to dissuade other decepticons" snowstorm prime spoke up

"aaaand" hot shot prodded

"and many did. He provided me a list of those he knew of"

Prime projected the list provided at the center of the round council table. Lugnut, strika, mindwipe, ratbat, Clench, astaea, underbite, Straxus, nitro zeus, runabout, runamuck, brawl, mohawk, scourge, bludgeon, octopunch and a multiple vehicons troopers were reported as having left to join the cause. More were estimated to possibly also have gone, as well as some of the more impressionable colonists reportedly answered as well. They were also very thankful that nearly all of the decepticon combiner teams were either incomplete or separated and unable to add their might to the cause.

"apparently blitzwing had also left us to join as well" windblade reported

"a shame, he was a trusted ally" obsidian sighed

"im sure" hot shot hissed

"meaning?"

"I find it off that such a high ranking commander in the decepticons isn't jumping at the chance to retake his position, and is that not your partners name on that list" the autobot accused

Snowstorm did not want to see the cities leaders fall to infighting, but hot shot raised a valid point under the circumstances; could obsidian be trusted or was he just keeping tabs on them. The decepticon appeared enraged by the accusation before it subsided and he sighed.

"of myself and strika, I was always the more practical and she the more passionate. She found it harder to adjust without conflict, and I am not surprised she would act on such an opportunity. I find the current situation ideal and enduring, unlike the self-defeating ways the decepticons once followed"

That was enough for the council and they moved on.

"I have no doubt at all that shockwave is involved in this. He clearly had sinister motives when last we met and despite my best efforts I have been unable to keep surveillance on him"

"the man behind the mask be the king of the castle" wreck gar commented

"So you think shockwave fabricated this image of megatron to recruit troops?" windblade asked

"that would appear to be the case" sandstorm answered

The meeting was soon interrupted by the report that the city detention center had been attacked. Dismissing the meeting, prime mobilized her team and headed out. The council members left one by one and obsidian, in deep thought, hovered down a hallway. He suddenly thought he saw a familiar form down the hall which promptly disappeared around a corner. Suspicious and curious, he moved to follow, eventually arriving at an empty utility room. Weary, he ensured his arm mounted missile launchers were at the ready and entered. As soon as he was clear of the door it suddenly shut and the room was dark save for the moon light through the large window along the outer wall. He suddenly felt pain overtake him as he was electrocuted, his body falling limp to the ground as his circuits sizzled. Looking up, he saw two shadows standing over him. As his optics adjusted to the lighting, he recognized the attackers; one was scourge, a blue, bearded space craft and renowned hunter. The other was Straxus, his colors were a dark blue that looked almost black with red highlights. He also bore his signature axe weapon in hand.

"Governor Straxus, to what do I owe the pleasure?" he hissed with a groan

He was silenced by a hard kick to his midsection by the scourge.

"you disappoint us general. You have disrupted megatrons plans" straxus growled

"megatron is gone, and as much as you fanatics want, he isn't coming back"

"not so dead in fact, I assure you"

"what plan?"

"you, a "supposedly" loyal soldier, were meant to rise with the others, and I would step forward and take your seat on the council"

"not happening"

"not yet, but soon. We had such high hopes for such an esteemed commander"

Straxus raised his axe to strike the downed bot when his head suddenly erupted in flame and shattered, blasted from behind. His lifeless body fell to the floor and the two remaining decepticons turned to look at the now open door. Illuminated by the hall lights was hot shot, who activated his flame throwers and belched flame at scourge. Engulfed in flame, the decepticon threw himself through the window to escape, transforming and taking off into the night sky. Hot shot ran to help obsidian up.

"how did you know?"

"I didn't; I followed you because I didn't trust you, but I do now"

Less than an hour later, after obsidian had been repaired, the council convened again to discuss the crisis. The attack on the detention facility had been a jail break initiated by the decepitcons. Flamewar and the other prisoners had all been freed, save long haul, who, unwilling to join in the escape, had died in the chaos. Guards armorhide, crosshairs and devcon had perished in the attack. Prime had taken the death of devcon, a renowned neutral mercenary and trader, hard, as he had become a friend to her. A secret she hid down deep was that she had a bit of a crush on the suave rogue, who had visited her home colony a few times on business. This, plus the description of obsidians attack seemed to worsen their concerns.

At the decepticon bar, soundblaster sat moping. All his work to try to unite the decepticons had been seemingly destroyed. Despite his warning, many of them had run off to join a new hopeless cause. His business had suffered too, now robbed of many of his regular patrons. He of course had regular visits from some of the remaining decepticons, like the fat tankor and spinister, who now sat at the bar. Even the bots of other affiliations like sky-byte and trailbreaker. Beast-bots and fellow patrons snapper and Break had just left with the autobot drunkard, who had begun frequenting the bar after being banned from all the autobot ones. With blackout off for the night his only other companions were crankcase, igor and buzzsaw. As he readied to begin closing up he was alerted by a squawk from buzzsaw; the mechanical condor had caught something he didn't like. An alert on his support chair went off and he looked to see that some of his exterior security cameras had been taken out. From a hidden one in front of the building he saw a group of shadowed bots making for the front door.

"I knew this would come sooner or later" he lamented in his mind

He issued a telepathic command to buzzsaw to hide in the rafters and record what transpires and take it to snowstorm prime, to which it obeyed. Soundblaster hoped what the mini-con bird catches will be enough for her, and for her safety in what is to come, for he may not see it. There were three long, loud bangs at the door, which raddled and alerted the other two cons present. Seeing no point in drawing things out needlessly, he clicked a button on his chair and remotely opened the door. Though he could not quite make out the form of the bot standing there, the single, red optic glowing the darkness was all the information he needed.

"come in shockwave, though I did not take you for a drinker"

"cute" the cyclops quipped back

The lanky Shockwave marched through the door followed by strika, lugnut, flamewar and blitzwing. Soundwave glared hatefully as ratbat fluttered in and perched on shockwaves shoulder; the small con returned the stare with just as much scorn. The two had had a very complicated relationship over the years. Soundblaster could register a 7th bot lingering just outside the door in the shadows. Shockwave turned his optic to the two bar patrons, who shrunk under his gaze.

"traitors…and witnesses, unfortunate" he thought aloud.

The other cons chuckled sadistically at the comment, but while the 6 bots appeared threatening, they made no attempt at violence, appearing to just be enforcers or an escort. Through the door appeared the one who they followed, and to soundblasters shock, appeared to be megatron himself. The bot, a familiar grey, with some metallic blue in color, stood roughly the same size as the larger bots of the room. He obviously was a flyer, evidenced by the wings on his back and cockpit on his chest. The squared bucket helmet was the most prominent and familiar characteristic.

"impossible, you are not megatron!"

"I am megatron reborn; stronger, faster, tougher and better in every way"

Soundblaster examined the bot, looking over every detail and in deep thought.

"so, you finished the project; this is nothing but another mere clone" he turned to shockwave

Soundblaster was suddenly seized and ripped out of his chair my the new megatron, the bots grip tightening around his neck.

"I am not a clone, I am everything megatron was, perfected; the decepticon ideals and power given form. I am the future"

The other decepticons all cackled at the show of force and declaration. Soundblaster knew what was to come and that there was no going back for him or walking away from this confrontation. He more than any bot, was one who stuck to his beliefs and convictions without waiver. Those may have changed over the centuries, but he had not.

"you are only a shadow. This city is the future, and snowstorm prime will destroy yo…"

The room filled with the horrid augmentation of synthetic misery of soundblasters voice as he cried out, megatron having shoved his free hand through the disabled bots chest. Only blitzwing looked away from the cruel site as the other cheered. Megatron felt around and seized the decepticons spark core in his hand.

"any last words, traitor?"

Soundblaster said nothing, merely staring firmly into the clones eyes. Unseen and unknown, soundblaster, for one last time, channeled his ability to scan and decipher the thoughts of others. He read the mind of the bot before him and saw the truth, and inside, he smiled, content. Unnerved, the megatron clenching the spark tighter and drew the black bot closer to whisper to him.

"this city, this world, this universe will burn in my hand like your spark, and I shall kill your new prime myself"

"your tricks don't work on me" soundblaster replied

Enraged, with a sudden crunch and a screeching synthetic scream, it was over. The now greying body of soundblaster dropped to the floor, dead. Before anyone could react, crankcase came running out from the back room after hearing the commotion. Seeing the scene, no words were exchanged as he opened fire on the attackers, and was soon joined by tankor and spinister. The others took cover but quickly overwhelmed and gunned down the traitorous cons. Flamewar took sadistic glee in targeting igor, whose small body shattered to pieces from the impact of her blast. Megatron silently turned and made for the door, followed by the others. Just outside the door, megatron stopped, apparently caught in thought.

"mighty megatron, shall I burn down and destroy this filthy traitor refuge?" ratbat requested

"and destroy the bodies, of course not. Destroyed this place is a warning, but standing, it is a reminder"

With no more words, the decepticons vanished into the night, their mission accomplished. To his anguish, buzzsaws mission was also complete and he reluctantly left his fallen master to deliver the message to prime. The yellow and black bird arrived at the council chamber in the midst of their meeting. Though they could not understand him, it was clear he had importatnt news. With soundblaster not answering her calls, snowstorm was forced to call the only other bot in the city who was adequately compatible with cassette mini-cons, Blaster. She, nor any of the council, were enthusiastic about inviting a bot of the press into a sensitive situation but they needed answers. He was summoned and arrived, and predictably sought exclusive information for his broadcasts.

"we will deal with that later, can you please play back whatever buzzsaw needs to show us"

"right on" she smiled

Accepting the decepticon into his chest case, he transformed and jacked into the port for the view screen. All present were forced to bear witness to the horrible footage, with snowstorm especially thrown into despair over the loss of soundblaster, a confident and close friend. Blaster transformed and remained silent while buzzsaw ejected and flew over to land on the primes shoulder, comforting her in the grief he knew they shared. Their shock and worry was suddenly compounded with a sound like thunder as the building, the very city, began to shake. They moved to look out the window, and as the thundering and shaking continued, they saw a faraway part of the city suddenly enveloped in smoke and fire. They saw the silhouette of buildings breaking apart and falling and a huge mass raise from the ground; trypticon. The remains of the dead titan, on which part of the city was built, raised into the sky in base form and vanished into the darkness, leaving only chaos in its wake.


	10. Chapter 10

She felt horrible; at the lowest point of her career of a prime, if she could dare call herself that. The city was still recovering from the decepticons escape with trypticon 2 weeks earlier. Its separation had caused the collapse of much of the city built on and around it. It took nearly 2 days simply for the fires to stop. She watched the Reporter Andromeda's coverage on the vid screen. The destruction was the worst the city had since the war, and had accumulated a death count of about 135 bots, with another 302 injured. The city, and its's people, were in a bad place.

She headed to Soundblasters old bar to clear her mind. She was of course joined by buzzsaw, who had now, though their shared grief, become her constant companion. After the death of her dear friend, the couple sparkstalker and lightbright had applied for ownership of it to run themselves, which she had approved. Per Buzzsaw, Soundblaster had in fact left the bar to her, but the prime had no time or use for it, so she gladly turned it over to someone who could properly care for it. Though the outside remained the same, at her request to honor soundblaster, the inside had been spruced up and made a far more inviting place. It was a bit more cheery now and though a lot of sketchy types still tended to frequent it, it's clientele was far from what it once was as most of the decepticons had answered megatrons call to arms. Its new owners, as basis from their own relationship, opened the door to any bot of any background. It was very quickly, in her mind, replace maccadam's as the city's biggest hot spot.

She strolled in easily, as the entrance was not guarded or patrolled anymore. That left the moody blackout in a nasty state, more so when he had been reassigned to provide backup music for sky-byte, the primary performer for the hang out. She looked about the room; colonist strafe and mini-con sqweeks were manning the bar. Sitting at the bar was autobot tracks and his decepticon brother needlenose, both on each side of the renegade autobot Nightra and clearly competing for her attention. Down the end of the bar drinking alone was the beast bot rattrap, though she herself couldn't recall his affiliation. The croctobots Skullcruncher and Razorgrille were bussing tables while the co-owners mingled with the guests. While there were autobots and neutrals now, there were still quite a few decepticons who had not abandoned the city. At one table sat the thunderblast and shortround and at another was swindle and switchblade, both looking cocky. Acid storm, skywarp, flip sides, demolishor and dead end sat at another, all already buzzed and trying to keep to themselves. Fellow firecons flamefeather and Cindersaur both sat at another table, both already passed out.

"I hope none of them will be alt modeing home" she thought

Prime did happily recognize some patrons together at a table; auotobot landmine as well as her former charges mudflap and skipjack. Fellow hard workers now after some time with her, they all nodded with smiles when she passed. There were also of course many bots she didn't recognize from multiple factions. What caught her attention most though was a table to the side currently occupied by two bots; one she did not recognize, the other very much so. It was side burn, a cocky young hot shot that she had recently inducted into the expanded team prime. What was so concerning was that all of team prime was currently deployed to investigate the decepticon escape, or were supposed to be. Clearly the young blue autobot had found time in his busy duties to stop for a drink and flirt. The bot he was currently talking up, and who seemed to be weakening, was nightracer, another decepticon clone warrior. Side burn seemed pretty confident and relaxed until he caught sight of his commanders menacing glare from across the room. At that point he made a quick goodbye and attempt at a second date before rushing out of the club in a panic.

Prime spent the next few hours at the bar drowning away her woes. She had never been much of a drinker of refined energon but at this point, what did it matter. Half the city already thought she was a failed leader, so how would being a drunkard added on top of that change anything. She was roused from her pity party by receiving a message from drift.

"whaz iz it now drift?" she slurred

"prime, we…are you alright?"

"fiiiine…hrrr, fine, report!"

"please come to the destruction site, we have found something"

"something like what?"

"it is…hard to explain, you need to see it for yourself"

"fine, rally the rest of the team there and I'll meet you"

She went to finish her drink before leaving when it was knocked out of her hand by buzzsaw, who screeched at her. She looked at him, wide eyed and confused for a few seconds before smiling.

"thanks" she smiled

The pair departed fast and made for the wrecked part of the city where trypticon once sat. It took a little longer than expected as the prime, in her inebriated condition, had to drive slower. She arrived at the edge of the crater where her team was. The group had been expanded since its genesis, after its original four members, her close allies tailgate, spittor, snowcat and nightbird. Barricade and swift had also left the defense force to join the team, as well as colonists Aileron and snarl. And of course there was side burn and fellow autobot sixknight. As she pulled up, snarl appeared from the crater in his wolf mode.

"I combed the whole area, there was nothing, until I hit the utility tunnel at the base" he reported in his old, strained voice

"and?" she prodded

"follow" he answered

He lept back down into the crater and the rest followed. Eventually, near its bottom, they indeed came to the remains of a utility tunnel that ran from the sewer system into the lower parts of trypticon. Within they were met by the uncomfortable sight of the displayed, mangled corpses of multiple bots. They realized that said bots were the other bots associated with flamewars cloning scheme that were also broken out of prison. Clearly they were considered failures to be made an example of. The bodies were assorted in distasteful, disrespectful and in the case of scatterspike and steeljaw, downright debaucherous poses. It was sickening that the decepticons would treat their own this way.

"have you found anything else, possibly hints to the decepticons plans or intended destination?"

"nothing as of yet prime" barricade responded

"jetfire and sky-lynx are on wide range recon looking for them but we have not heard back" astrotrain chimed in

"the earth bots are also on the watch" sixknight added

"aaaaargh, then we still have no answers. We have nothing. Shockwave and his schemes made me look like a fool and failure and have torn down this city"

As she sunk into herself and almost began to leave when drift seized her by the arms.

"you are not a failure, you are anything but! You are a prime and have proven it at every turn, and you will again."

The rest of the team added their own encouragements and, uplifted a bit, she at least had some confidence again. As they exited the crater, she received a communication from playback.

"prime, we have incoming. Jetfire and sky lynx are en-route to the city"

"thank primus, maybe we will have some answers then"

Within a few hours the fliers returned and looked to be in bad shape. They had located trypticon, which had settled in the north pole. While attempting to do some recon on the decpeticons, they found themselves under heavy fire. Sky lynx was mostly functional but jetfire would need serious repairs. They could find no indication of the enemy's intent outside of fortifying their position. Prime knew clearly that this was not simply a case of breaking from or seceding from society; the new megatron and shockwave had a far grander scheme in mind. And she admitted that after watching the footage of megatrons confrontation with soundblaster over and over again, something seemed off to her. She had a gut feeling that soundblaster knew something about this megatron and she had to find out what it was; why her friend had to die. She had no choice; the decepticons would need to be tracked down and confronted.

A majority of the council insisted on rallying all their military might and marching on the decepticons, but snowstorm knew that was folly. They could easily play right into megatrons hands, and the show of force could also send the wrong message to the humans that would also be affected. Team prime would go in first as a recon and first strike, while reinforcements would be ready at the groundbridge to teleport in for support. She gave her team 2 days to prepare and get their affairs in order. Her intention was for them to head north through North America as far as they could by land before sky lynx would transport them to the pole. In her stead, snowstorm left jazz to take her seat on the council, with chromia as his second. With the many losses of members to the security force, the dinobots had returned to the city to sure up their numbers. Quickshadow had been made temporary chief of the force, with strongarm and snaptrap as her lieutenants.

Snowstorm prime herself went to the science guild to see if they had any equipment that would aid them. She had just sent a pair of lunabots to the moon to keep a satellite view of the decpeticons. From their reports, not much movement or activity could be seen. What that told her was that whatever they were working on they were doing within trypticon, away from prying eyes. She entered one of the main labs of the science building and was met by the revolting sight of the unscrupulous rattrap attempting to "fraternize" with scientist botanica. There had been some rumors floating around that the pair were together but most disbelieved them due to their being very incompatible. The stout bot panicked at realizing they were being watched, transformed to his rat mode and scurried away. The alarmed scientist attempt to form a convincing excuse but snowstorm was not interested. She requisitioned as much espionage and travel gear as could be gathered.

She then went to go recharge, for in the morning, their mission began.


	11. Chapter 11

Come sunrise, team prime left the city as quickly and quietly as possible. They didn't need any celebrations or parade of some sort mucking up a delicate military operation. Plus there was no telling what decepticon agents might still be hiding in the city and coordinating with megatron. The council members were the only ones allowed to see them off. Aside from them however, lancers sparkmate greenlight had showed up and the two embraced in farewell.

"primus be with you, all of you" windblade wished

"here comes the cavalry, doodoodoodoo" wreck gar chimed in

""In case I don't see you... good afternoon, good evening, and good night" rum-maj added

"you're in for quite an ordeal if the past dozen millennia have taught me anything" obsidian frowned

"good luck" sandstorm smiled

"don't slag to many cons before we get there" jazz smiled

She shook his hand before transforming and silently leading the convoy out the city's east entrance, simply because it was the one least used. The large Roller had come as well, being the one towing the trailer with their equipment. Another complication was the addition was nightracer, who had been invited, without authorization, by side burn in his sad attempts to impress her. At the very least, the prime thought, she was documented as a well-trained soldier. Still, she did not know if she could be trusted; if anyone could be.

She had, before leaving, briefly overseen the subtle assembly of a military force to strike trypticon once they had infiltrated it. Rather than jazz or the security force, the council had approached Big Convoy to head the operation. A beast-bot and a seasoned general, he had begun gathering together volunteers and former soldiers together to prep for the offensive.

With that they were off, driving full speed towards the border of the US and Canada. Thanks to their human connections, they were able to proceed at a much faster pace without interference. She received an interesting report from the spying lunabots; though no decepticons had ventured far from trypticon, an jet had arrived from an unknown location.

Within trypticon, the majority of the decepticons had been put to work, both repairing and fortifying it or mining. The underbelly of the dead titan had been reconfigured to open up to the icy surface on which it sat to allow excavation. The decepticon elites had found themselves underwhelmed by their leaders new initiative. They assumed they would strike back at new cybertron, or begin scouring the earth of its organic life. Instead, they found themselves resigned to menial tasks at megatrons command.

Shockwave, flamewar and ratbat looked on with confusion and distaste as megatron oversaw the mining shaft with interest; some of their best warriors, like lugnut and strika, had been put to work in it. Their reborn leader had been different of late. At first he seemed exactly as the original, able to rally their fragmented forces, yet now that he had them, it was as if his personality had shifted. There was a nagging thought that, once again, the cloning process had failed and was deteriorating. However, shockwave knew better; it was not that his mind was altered; it was simply that a new personality had presented itself, or even a façade had been dropped. The fleeting theory of megatron being an imposter was unthinkable, as they themselves cloned him and oversaw his revival. Most confusing was his new, recently arrived protégé, Thrust. Though he shared the name and many attributes with the notable seeker, he was very different; he was a tactician and commander, albeit a neurotic one.

Shockwave, never one for tact or false faces, simply walked up to speak with megatron.

"lord megatron, what precisely is out objective?"

The question had been asked many time and always answered with vague promises of power and glory. The clone tyrant looked to meet the peering gaze of the scientist, joined by many others. His leadership was beginning to falter he sensed; the decepticons faith in him had to be reenergized.

"so be it shockwave" he said flatly

Megatron walked forwards to enter the gaping maw of the mine shaft, followed by thrust and he gestured for shockwave to follow. They went deeper and deeper, passing troops working hard yet nothing was said. Finally, near the current base of the excavation, megatron stopped and pointed to some cyberglyphs in the wall. Shockwave examined them closely for a few seconds, while megatron and thrust shared a knowing glance.

"Fascinating, I have no record or knowledge of these writings. Clearly they are cybertronian yet I do not have them in my databank" he reported

"what a shame" thrust chided with sadistic glee

"no, you wouldn't. These are writings from the dawn of cybertron, and lost loooong before the earliest autobots or decepticons came online" megatron answered

"and what do they mean?"

"that we are close. Buried on this derelict rock is a weapon of ultimate power from the past. One so great it was meant to be lost and never found"

"and what is this weapon?"

"that…you will have to wait to find out" megatron smirked

Shockwave was unnerved; megatron was never one for humor, and rarely smiled outside of sadistic glee on the battlefield. He was growing more uncomfortable with the situation they found themselves in. Before he could say anything else the two other bots turned and left back up the shaft without him. Dejected and feeling forgotten, he could do nothing but scan the runes to research in his old lab.

Team prime, after days of endless driving, finally reached their intended rendezvous point. Indeed, there was a yellow VW beetle waiting for them. Bumblebee transformed and walked over with a smile.

"snowstorm prime, good to see you again"

"likewise bumblebee. I just wish it were under better circumstances"

Suddenly there was the sound of gunfire and blasts all around the party. From through the trees burst a decepticon team and a fire fight broke out. The enemy consisted of blitzwing, runabout, runamuck, the colonist slide and a trio of vehicon jet troopers. The vehicons were gunned down fast but while diving for cover, snowstorm found herself held at gunpoint by slide. The young colonist had been a vocal dissenter of her leadership since she came to the city.

"down with the primes!" she cursed

Preparing to pull the trigger, she hesitated; there was the sudden twinge of regret and second thoughts on the side of the colonist youth. Unfortunately, her choices had been made and drift's instincts kicked in to protect his leader. With the opening, he cut through slides gun with his sword and sliced her in half lengthwise. The prime looked on in horror as a few staticy, distorted words escaped slides lips before she fell apart, offline. A permanent look of shock was imprinted on her face; a mess of internal parts and energon littered the ground around. She could barely have time to register the gruesome act before she, drift and bumblebee we cornered by the battlecharger duo.

"hoho, look what we caught" runabout laughed

"megatrons gonna be real…" runamuck started

Before they could even consider what to do with their captives, blitzwing, who had come up behind them, drew a blade. In one quick strike he took off the heads of both decepticons and crushed said heads under his feet. Team prime rallied together and drew their weapons on him, though he held up his hands in a surrendering gesture.

"hold on guys, im on your side"

"sure you are" riptide frowned

"no for real, I was just a spy. Astrotrain, buddy, you know me, I aint a complicated bot"

All eyes turned to the other triple changer, who just shrugged.

"I went undercover per councilman obsidians orders, I assumed it was the idea of the council"

"evidently not" snowstorm grimaced

"then what intel do you have?" barricade asked

"megatrons working the cons to the cog trying to dig something up outta the ice. No one knows what it is and everyone is getting on edge, even shockwave and the higher ups. It's all pretty suspicious"

"interesting" drift thought aloud

"and if you found us here, I assume our fears about a mole in the city are confirmed?" prime asked

"possibly, but that wasn't why we were out here. We were sent to scout and ensure bumblebees group weren't intending to interfere. We only picked up your signals on approach"

"then perhaps we have some luck on our side" swift smiled

"probably won't last" sixknight frowned

"blitzwing, is there any chance you can go back and get us some more information on what megatron is up to?"

"not likely. The decepticons aren't stupid; if I go back missing my whole team, no matter what lies I make up, I'll be suspect. If I'm not locked up or terminated, I'll be closely watched. I'm afraid there's no getting back into trypticon for me"

"sure there is, you can blast your way in with us" side burn smiled

Nigtracer gave him an amused nudge and the young bot beamed.

"Perhaps these matters are better discussed in a friendlier environment. One with not so many corpses around" bumblebee spoke up

"what will we do about them?" prime asked

"I will radio an old human friend in the military. They have had to clean up after cybertronian battles before" he answered

As they made to leave, snowstorm could not help but give one more saddened look to the remains of the misguided slide. She wished to primus that her remains would be treated with respect. After some time the team was comfortable at a large warehouse just outside a quiet town that bumblebee and his group called home. Aside from bumblebee, there was also ratchet, road rage, hound, skids, thundercraker, beastbox and squawktalk. They had wondered about cyclonus, who was also rumored to live apart from the city. They explained that was true but he in fact struck out in his own. Prime enjoyed seeing her team reminisce with their old friends and for just one night, she was happy and could forget all the horror she had endured and what more was to come. There were stories, laughing, singing and celebrating as the night went on.

After most of the others had gone into recharge, she slipped away to step outside for a moment of quiet. She projected from her lights a holographic image of a team photo the group had taken not a few weeks before. They were in front of the memorial statue of slipstream and bulkhead and they all looked quite happy. She and the teams original four members were all close together with their arms clasped. Barricade and swift were holding hands while sixknight had nightbird on his shoulders. Snarl looked aloof while snowcat and spittor smiled, unaware that side burn was behind them giving bunny ears. And finally Aileron hovered in the air above them, with tailgate happily sitting on top of her. The prime couldn't help but smile.

"I do the same thing sometimes"

She jumped to look down and see bumblebee standing beside her. He projected an image similarly; it was of the original autobot crew that landed on earth at the ark launch site back on cybertron.

"it helps doesn't it?" he asked

"yes…it does" she smiled

Morning came, and they headed out without delay. The refugee autobots guided them as far as they could go before turning back. Near the north end of Canada, where the temperatures got colder and colder, was when prime decided to radio sky lynx. He arrived very quickly, and was quicker to remind them of the fact. His self-inflating personality made them all glad he didn't hang around the city. They arrived at the pole after a few hours, approximately 50 miles from trypticon. Roller busted open the trailer and started handing out gear and weapons; this is where things would get a little tricky.


	12. Chapter 12

Team prime took to the snowy ground for their approach.

"astrotrain, you, aileron and sky lynx head to the moon and rendezvous with the lunabots; jetfire, cosmos and stardrive should be meeting you there"

"what for?" astrotrain asked

"in case things go real south, you'll be in charge of operation: meteor storm"

"prime, that's pretty hardcore, especially for you" aileron frowned

"we need to ensure the decepticons are stopped, no matter the cost"

"now you're really starting to sound like a prime" roller smiled

The three took off into the atmosphere, leaving the rest to trek over the frozen landscape. They finally came to hill that they could use for cover but that was close enough to trypticon for visual recon. The main entrance was open and guarded by smolder and scrapmetal; the lunabots recon also confirmed there were scattered ground troops around the perimeter of the fortress. Seeing the undermanned entrance as their best opportunity, they made their move, recklessly charging forward. As they drew closer, they were of course noticed and they were forced to contend with enemy fire as well as trypticons defenses.

Within, megatron stood, absent mindedly scrolling through human broadcasts when he heard the door open. He turned ever so slightly to see it was thrust, and his form seemed to relax slightly.

"mighty megatron" the seeker said with a mocking tone

"have those fools found anything yet?"

"their close, we detect a form deep in the ice that we are close to"

"a form, odd, and what about our other initiative?"

"sparse but adequate; each member is willing"

"perfect, soon…"

Suddenly shockwave popped up on the view screen.

"lord megatron, we have an enemy force led by snowstorm prime assaulting the fortress"

"very interesting" megatron smirked

Outside, the considerable firepower they had chosen to bring was making a difference. The outdated or barely functioning defense lasers were being whittled down and the guards overwhelmed. Finally, smolder, scrapmetal and the other remaining guards retreated and began closing the main gate. Unwilling to risk their failure and overcome with a strange new sense of reckless courage, snowstorm transformed and charged ahead alone. She went back to robot mode and slid along the ice, just barely making it under the massive metal door before it closed.

"slag, that was…"

She looked up to see shatter and dropkick standing over her with sadistic grins.

"cloooose" she squeaked

She was mercilessly pummeled and beaten by the pair as revenge for their arrest and imprisonment. Outside, the rest of the team, perplexed and worried, moved to be flush with the side of trypticon, attempting to hide from defenses and prying eyes.

"what do we do now?" tailgate asked

"go home?" side burn shrugged

The comment earned punches from both nightracer and snowcat.

"that wasn't like her" riptide spoke up

"hm, best we can do is find another way in and try to find what's left of her" blitzwing looked around

"what is wrong with you?!" swift flared

"this place is full of decepticons that are angry and desperate; trust me, she won't last long"

"then let's get moving!" drift shouted as he dug his sword into the metal wall

Snowstorm weakly came back around, realizing she was being limply dragged through a hall way. Every joint and circuit overloaded with pain; they had really beaten the slag out of her. They then entered a large chamber, the center of which opened into a large natural pit. She could make out many of the high ranking decepticons glaring at her; there were dozens of them scattered through the chamber. One such that she did take notice of was cyclonus, who she thought had been neutral. She also shared a hatfule look with shockwave and flamewar. A large cord was lowered down the shaft and was being drawn back up. Looking into the pit and with his back to her was megatron; it infuriated her that this despot, who had slain one of her closest friends, wouldn't even look at her. She was dropped to the floor hard and only then saw that the gruesome trio known as the dreads were her escorts. Before any words could be exchanged a massive chunk of ice and black metal, at least three times larger than any bots present, appeared from the opening and was dropped.

Shockwave and airachnid step forward to examine it when it began to crack and shudder. They backed away and weapons were drawn; all were on edge. Suddenly, in an eruption of ice and fire, a massive form burst from the frozen prison. The elemental shower sent all the bots diving for cover as the form began swinging about wildly. It produced an axe in hand a swung it about as it shouted incoherently; one such wild strike went just over her head, while cleaving the dreads in half. As one dropped dead, she saw her blaster fall from his grasp. She leaned over to reach for it only to be stopped when lugnuts massive hand seized her head to hold her in place. In short order the mysterious bot was disabled and secured. Brought to its knees beside her, she could get a better look at it; mostly black in color, it looked ancient yet powerful. However, at closer inspection, large amounts of rust and ware could be seen, showing this bot was way past its prime. His body kibble, primarily turbines and partial wings, made clear he was some sort of flyer and rather than a standard mouth, the lower part of his face was a beard-like formation of spiked metal. Even on his knees and hunched in pain, he was massive next to her. He turned his head to look down at her and though his optics were a sinister red, they somehow seemed soft.

"I'll handle this trash sir" came a voice

Prime turned to see rampage, a black, white and gold bot, relieving lugnut as her guard. He had a large slash over the autobot symbol on his chest. He held one of his blades beside her head and looked down with a severe look, yet winked, intriguing her. Megatron stomped over to inspect the large bot with a frown.

"you are not what I was expecting" he scowled

"congratulations" he responded in an aged yet severe voice

Megatrons eyes roamed over the bot, clearly in deep thought.

"you had it, you hid it"

The bots eyes flared and he attempted to gte up but was just barely restrained by lugnut and strika.

"I am the seeker, and what you seek was meant to never be found or used. It is a weapon of death and destruction"

"precisely"

Megatron punctuated with a hard backhand across the seekers face, disorienting him.

"megatron!" came thrusts echoed voice

Jetting up and out of the mine, the decepticon appeared bearing a large, intricate ornate staff; it was almost twice as tall as himself. Megatron was elated and seized it from him holding it up to examine. Shockwave stalked over, weary and skeptical.

"at last, mighty megatron, we have our prize, what will it do?"

"kill you all" megatron answered nonchalantly

"no, don't use the void staff, it will destroy you, all of you!" the seeker cried out

"kill, yes, but it will be quite safe when in it's true masters hands" megatron smiled

A look of horror came over the seekers face. The decepticons all began to draw their weapons cautiously.

"I was correct, you are not the megatron we created" shockwave accused

"of course I'm not you ignorant cyclops"

The decepticons were now at full aggression and primed their weapons on the foreigner.

"now!" thrust shouted

At that moment scourge, cyclonus, bludgeon and trickdiamond changed tohold their weapons on the other decepticon higher ups; it was a coup.

"apologies, but we found the majority of you lot to be rather less than usable to our mechinations" the fake megatron smirked

Confused by the absence of airachnid, who had also been a conspirator, thrust searched through the room. He found her clinging to life, impaled to the wall by a large shard of ice flung by the seekers reawakening. Seeing she was no longer of use, he unloaded a few shots from his arm gun into her head, putting her out of her misery.

Outside, during this drama, team prime was still attempting to infiltrate the fortress, while dealing with constant attacks by roaming guards. Finally drift, as second in command, had had enough.

"this is drift to big convoy"

"convoy here"

"prime has been taken hostage, we need back up now. Initiate attack!"

Within trypticon, prime came to a hard decision; she had to end this now before it got worse. Two groups of rogue decepticons, the mysterious bot and now a dangerous weapon; this had to be stopped. She began typing a message and sent it to astrotrain.

"initiate operation: meteor storm now!" it read


	13. Chapter 13

Astrotrain huffed with aggravation, reluctant to obey his orders. He and the other space-faring bots had drifted from the moon to the upper atmosphere.

"bots, open fire" he ordered

Per primes orders, they fired from above on trypticon; the entrance into the gravity of the planet intensified their blasts to ten times their usual strength. This was meant to decimate the fortress at all costs. Within trypticon, the standoff remained. The false megatron began to convulse and malfunction, all the while a smile on his face. A cloud of a strange energy-like substance began to bleed from his every joint. It congealed together as one form, at which point megatron collapsed to the floor in pieces, lifeless. The form solidified and took shape; the bot was black with purple and gold highlights. Its head was like a helmet, features, with large angled horns jutting from the sides. Part of his kibbles hung off his back, segmented and looking like skeletal wings.

"sideways!" flamewar hissed

Snowstorm had never heard that name before but obviously the cons were somehow familiar with him.

"how?" shockwave growled

"I simply commandeered your little creation when it was ready enough, and playing the part of megatron was easy enough, especially when you were all so desperate to have him back"

Shockwave was indignant and embarrassed at the lapse of knowledge but flamewar seethed with rage at the insult to her beloved leader. Shockwave briefly wished he had scorponok, a bot of brains and power, at his side; he would have seen through sideways' act where he didn't. Instead he was stuck with the infuriatingly reckless femme, who had pointlessly slain said bot for no reason. She went to lunge at the trickster but paused upon thrust pressing his blaster to her head.

"uh uh" he cautioned

"we have incoming!" Astraea reported

On the display screen a ground bridge could be seen opening and big convoy charging out, cannon blazing.

"well prime, you are full of surprises" sideways laughed

"you haven't seen anything yet"

The confident and assured smile she wore made the sparks of every decepticon in the room sink; somehow, they were scared. The seeker looked up, sensing something, before suddenly beginning to laugh. The room was suddenly alive with alerts and warning.

"incoming!"

That was all asraea could shout before trypticon began to quake and shatter as laser blasts rained down on it.

"what have you done!?" shockwave snarled

"what was logical" she responded

"it appears that this party is getting to crowded. As I have what I want, I think I'll take my leave. Decepticons, your hospitality has been most appreciated"

With that, sideways generated an independent warp gate and vanished through it, taking the void staff with him. The seeker cried out and rose to try to follow but, between being restrained and being too weak, collapsed. Thrust and the other rogue cons quickly fled through the gate before it closed. Flamewar took the opportunity to order all available troops to battle.

Outside, big convoy led elita-one, magmatron, tigerhawk and rack n ruin as the first wave of the assault. Per prime's orders, they were told to take as few lives as possible. Most of the decepticon forces charged out to meet them, led by the juggernaut Wheelbot and the merciless squadron X. Soon greatshot, Quickswitch, Liokaiser, twirl, downshift, tidal wave and a force of volunteer troops charged out of the ground bridge to join the fight. The sight of the massive tidal wave and Liokaiser was enough to scare most of the decepticon troops and wayward colonists to surrender. Under the false megatron they had mostly been relegated to labor; they had no real fight or drive in them; the cowardly ransack and crumblezone were quick to back down. There were some fierce fighters left though, and so Bonecruncher, fracture, skyquake, nitro zeus and Mohawk would not yield and fell in battle. Tigerhawk, twirl, greatshot and quickswitch took to the air to strafe wheelbot; their missiles damaged him enough that tidal wave was able to tackle him. It turned into a vicious melee until a shot from convoys canon crippled the giant's base wheel and brought him down. Still swinging and trying to fight, magmatron barely managed to get in close to the behemoth.

"the decepticons shall rise again!" wheelbot roared

"not today" the beast-bot responded

Magmatron then executed the decepticon with a point blank blast to the head.

"bruuuutal" liosaiser remarked with a chuckle

The beast general thenwent into his combined beast mode and with a transformed convoy and tigerhawk, charged through the attacking squadron X. The decepticons attempted to collect themselves but upon seeing an angry tidal wave looming over them, reluctantly surrendered. At the front of trypticon, team prime had managed to break in, though noted the absence of buzzsaw. The fortress still shook and burned from the orbital bombardment. They faced some but little opposition as most of those they encountered were concerned only with evacuating. Scrapmetal, octopunch and underbite scrambled out of a burning chamber, forcing their way past the group to escape. Suddenly side burn pushed nightracer aside and took multiple shots meant for her. Shatter and dropkick were the shooters, but could not react quick enough to evade the slime of an angry spittor splashing them in the face. Dirft and lancers charged forward with their blades, which ran the murderous duo through the sparks.

"how are you kid?" barricade asked

"oh, it's nothing" the damaged youth lied

"sixknight, nightracer, roller, get him out of here. Meet up with big convoys' team for medical attention" drift ordered

"no, I can still fight" side burn argued

"another day, you did good kid" snowcat answered with a thumbs up

The injured bot would have argued further had an affectionate hand on his shoulder from nightracer not changed his mind. They split and the rest headed further to find their leader. Within the burning and shaking control room, an unhinged flamewar moved to execute the prime. Suddenly from a maintenance vent, buzzsaw burst through and blasted the decepticon. The attack was damaging but not lethal; just enough to give prime her chance. Rampage used the opportunity to kick her blaster to her and she, with her improved combat skills, landed shots on lugnut and strika, freeing the seeker. Ratbat knocked buzzsaw aside and streaked down towards the prime, only to be clipped and knocked away by one of rampages blades.

"traitor!" shockwave shouted

Before he could act he was smacked away like a toy by the large seeker. As the damage and trauma to the room was becoming dangerous, the seeker suddenly transformed into a large space craft.

"grab on!" he shouted

Prime, rampage and buzzsaw did just that and the black jet took off down the hall, the force of his thrusters sending the closing decepticons flying across the room.

"evacuate" shockwave weakly ordered

"prime, do you read me. We have secured the perimeter" big convoy reported

"great! Astrotrain, cease fire, I repeat, cease fire!"

The bombardment stopped and trypticon was left flaming and smoking; not destroyed but badly damaged and compromised. Team prime turned a corner and had to duck to avoid the huge jet that streaked by, with a white and blue blur on its side.

"hi guys" they managed to make out as it passed

The seeker burst out through the wall of the fortress and transformed, sending his passengers into a free fall to the ground.

"woah, stick the landing!" he shouted

He failed, landing face first and rolling through the snow, same as the others. The group composed themselves, snowstorm happy to be reunited with her cassette companion. She turned to rampage, who was collecting his dropped swords.

"why?"

"I…I thought it would have been different, that the decepticons would have been a worthier cause. I was wrong"

"thank you"

They walked over to the seeker, who struggled to get up. He produced his axe and for a moment she worried he might attack, only for the blades to retract and him use it as a walking stick. As large as he was, he remained hunched, a much clearer sign of his age.

"I think we are going to have a lot to talk about" she said to him

"I imagine so lass, I imagine so" he groaned

The four bots looked on, seeing team prime make their way out and over to them. All the decepticons were rounded up and trypticon was taken; the day was won.

"or was it truly" prime reconsidered

About a week later, the city council, with snowstorm prime having reclaimed her seat, convened again to discuss how to move forward. Additional seats had been granted for the time being to big convoy and jazz, who had taken command of the security force again. Blitzwing and rampage had been granted amnesty and debriefed of the decepticons plans. What became clear was that the decepticons had put all their stock and faith in the new megatron and without him had nothing to show for it.

"first and foremost, our concern needs to be what to do with the decepticon prisoners. It's become quite clear that many were not out for death and conquest, clear by the colonists who signed up without knowing what they were getting themselves into" prime started

"I suggest leniency for the most part" windblade added

"easier said than done" hot shot countered

"the candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long" rum-maj spoke up

"obsidian, as a decepticon, what is your opinion?"

"it is a difficult situation for me. I believe the newcomer colonists should be forgiven, as well as the vehicon troopers"

"you mean the meat of the decepticon forces?!" sandstorm said indignantly

"the vehicons were constructed cold, built for war, they knew nothing else. I cannot blame them for believing the opportunity to be a better path. I ask that at the very least they and some of the other decepticons be given second chances, under probation if need be, to prove themselves"

"I agree; by show of hands, who else?" prime announced

All the council save hot shot and big convoy agreed, and it was decided.

"of course, that is not the case for all the decepticons, as you know" she added

"I know well enough there are those that are too dangerous or untrustworthy"

"and what do we do with them anyway?" jazz asked

"what about trypticon?" convoy spoke

"what do you mean?"

"trypticon is beyond salvage, unable to be mobile again or be reintegrated into the city. It's been stripped of its offensive capabilities and decepticon secrets; why not utilize it as a permanent detention facility"

"interesting, very interesting" prime commented

The whole council seemed intrigued by the idea.

"we saw and suffered the folly of a prison complex within the city. Trypticon is isolated in the middle of a frozen wasteland; a perfect prospect for the worst of the worst in my opinion"

"obsidian, what is your opinion?"

"to quote shockwave, it is most logical" he responded

"speaking of shockwave, who are the bots we send to the freezer?" jazz asked

"the deepest circle of hell is reserved for traitors and mutineers" said wreck-gar

"shockwave, flamewar and ratbat are top of the list with no wiggle room; they were the ring leaders. It's life imprisonment for them" prime said firmly

"agreed" obsidian nodded

"who else?" convoy asked flatly

Obsidian pulled up a list of his former comrades that had been apprehended and scrolled through the names. He appeared in deep thought for a couple minutes, selecting names before projecting the adjusted list to the center of the table.

"lugnut and strika must go to, they to fanatic to ever be free of megatrons hold"

"condemning your own partner, that's cold" hot shot commented

"if there were ever a chance to reach out to her, I'll take it, but for now, I fear this is for the best of the city" he responded solemnly.

"clench, mindwipe…brawl, onslaught, underbite and certainly all the members of squadron X are all too dangerous to go free"

"if that's what you think. Any others?"

"hmm, Astraea, Magnificus and smolder may be dangerous to but I'd like to give them the benefit of the doubt"

"so be it. Convoy, ensure trypticon is secured, repaired, and stripped of anything the prisoners could use to their advantage"

"understood, I should be able to efficiently rotate the military forces between guarding the city and the prison"

With that and the last few discussions dealt with, the council was dismissed. There was the lingering issues of sideways' splinter faction and new weapon but prime asserted that it would be addressed after she had more intel. Jazz noticed her heading out quickly.

"what up prime?"

"I'm going to have a long talk"

.


	14. Chapter 14

Prime headed down the road when she heard a familiar voice. She turned to see a large white and red jet come about and transform.

"jetfire, glad to see you in working order again"

"glad to be so. I just wanted to say farewell in person before heading off"

"heading off?"

"yes, with things finally winding down now, sky lynx, the dinobots and myself are heading back to the ark"

"must you, you have all been a great help and could be more"

"im afraid so, someone needs to keep an eye on that rowdy lot. By the by, how is nightbird getting along with your team?"

"if she has any complaints, she hasn't spoken of them to me"

The two shared good natured laugh at the lame joke.

"no, I love having her around and I think she does also, overtime she has become much more social"

"glad to hear. Well I'll be off then, take care snowstorm and you know where to find us if you need any more help"

The large flier took off over the horizon and she watched him go, her smile fading after he was gone.

"I fear I will" she remarked

After about an hour she came to a medical facility connected to the science guild. She entered, looking for the bot she had come to see. She met with ironfist and granite, both master technicians who had been working with and examining the seeker. Ironfist was a stout and blocky blue, white and yellow autobot. Granite was a large, awkwardly shaped decepticon. He clearly transformed into a cement mixer as the split sections of the drum sat on his shoulders and arms, which were lanky and had long pointed fingers.

"I'm here to see the seeker, how is he doing?"

"that's a bit difficult to answer" ironfist answered

"why?"

"because he's slagging nuts; he's falling apart and keeps trying to kill us! He nearly sliced me in half three times and almost took my head off another!" granite complained

"yes, well, the point is he is ancient; we cannot even properly back date how old he is. And age, along with lack of energon and cypertonium, have taken their toll. And he is clearly senile, his brain unit having been affected by these factors, which has caused him to occasionally lash out violently"

"I see. Where is he?"

"in the hab suite we have for patients, though his outbursts have made a mess of it, not to mention he's larger than most bots that would use it" ironfist rephrased

"I will see him"

"alone, without security? That's mad!" granite shouted

"prime, with all due respect, he's dangerous" ironfist added

"not to me" she smiled

It was a matter of intuition, of faith. She had seen the compassion in his optics when they first saw each other. She could trust him not to harm her. She went up and confidently entered the room, which had indeed been torn apart. Across from the door the seeker stood with his back to her, hunched over as usual, using his axe to support himself. The far wall was a long window that looked out over the city but she could not tell is he was doing just that or simply lost in thought.

"seeker?" she said cautiously

He twitched and for the briefest moment seemed aggressive but it faded. She warily took her fingers off the handle of her holstered blaster. He turned slowly to look at her, his optics looked weary; sad.

"I hear your being a little…difficult"

"just a bit agitated at you and your council locking me away here" he growled

"we just wanted to make sure you were ok and…"

"and controllable?!" he finished with a hint of menace

He looked back out the window again, scanning the surrounding area and the many bots walking and driving about.

"so, this is all that remains of our people I hear"

"there may be others out there, among the stars, but, for the most part, yes"

"hm, sad, we never thought it would be as such, but I suppose it's a far brighter future than others"

"that's what everyone is this city strives for. What others?"

"the seekers; warriors and explorers we were, heroes of a young cybertron"

"if there were others then you…do you…have a true name?"

"I…"

The aged bot tensed up, overcome with emotionl; both anger and sadness.

"I…can no longer remember"

"Seeker, I need to know everything you do remember, everything you know. This city and its people are my responsibility and I need to know what threats it may face" she said pleadingly

He looked down with his red eyes, almost looking through her, reading her spark.

"it's a story as old as cybertron"

"I have time"

He fell back, crashing onto the floor in a sitting position while she righted one of the overturned chairs to sit in across from him. He paused, as if to remember what they were even talking about.

"right, right. We, the seekers, were the second generation born from the spark of primus. We were crated to serve the 13, the first generation to walk cybertron. We were the first capable of transformation, which we used to explore the galaxy for them. We tried to build a civilization but when one of the 13 went bad, everything went to slag. The seekers were forced to choose sides. I, regretfully, chose wrong and became the sword of the fallen one. I was young, reckless, and ignorant of the big pictures. He sought a powerful weapon and sent us into the void to find it. Eventually, I found my senses and realized I was on the wrong side.

The fallen's seekers eventually all regrouped on this world, believing it to hold the weapon he sought, and were arrogantly ignorant of its developing organic life. But we found that the fallen had forsaken us, though I alone realized the reality that he had been defeated by his brethren. Abandoned and directionless, the seekers shattered, each searching for the weapon for themselves and turning on each other; brother against brother. We searched and fought and searched and fought for stellar cycles uncountable, until finally there were only a few of us left. We were all getting old and falling apart, weak without the lifeblood of our home. Finally, I myself managed to find the weapon, the void staff, but the other seekers found me too. I was forced to fight and slay each one of them. I was damaged, alone and forgotten. I had a vision from what I thought was primus himself. It told me how terrible and dangerous the staff was and that it was meant to be lost and never found. I swore it my duty to ensure that it wouldn't and let the icy depths take it and me. That is until you lot found me"

"I don't believe it, that's incredible, and you really are old"

"hehehe, I guess so. About as old as they come I reckon"

"seeker, what is the void staff?"

"the fallen wouldn't tell us, not even me, his second in command. All he ever said was that it was the weapon…of a god"

"a god" prime thought to herself

"so that's my story, what about yours? Been a long long time since I've met a prime, and was mighty odd to find one held at gunpoint when I woke up"

Snowstorm spent the afternoon telling her own tail and journey to the old seeker, bonding with him over their shared trials. Eventually sunset began to reflect over the city line through the window.

"how much longer do I have to stay here?" he groaned

"consider this your last night" she smiled

"then what, I don't think I'll quite fit in here in your little slice o' paradise" he said mockingly

"it's a paradise because it's a place for everyone" she shot back

"perhaps it is a brighter future indeed"

"I have an idea for a little trip tomorrow, a way to fill you in on everything you've missed"

"oh" he cocked his head skeptically

The next day prime led the seeker from the science guild, much to the delight of ironfist and granite, who she could see high-fiving as they made their way out. The two walked, as their different alt modes would make travel very difficult. From what she'd seen the old boy couldn't even transform without serious difficulty. The lumbering black giant attracted many stares from the passerby's, much to his aggravation.

"it will fade, everyone is different here" she patted his arm

"grr, where are we going anyway, my joints already ache"

"it's not much further"

They came to the command center, though she took him to the rear of the building, which was a large complex all its own.

"what is this place?"

"the alpha trion memorial archive. I though it might help to fill in some of your gaps of what has happened in the last few hundred millennia"

The seeker had a look of interest and knowing at the mention of trions name but said nothing. They were met by the elita-one, the host of the archive. As a past student of alpha trion and former sparkmate of optimus prime, considered by most to be the greatest matrix-bearer to have lived, she considered the position an honor. Both bots showed her great respect and she led them to a chamber that held holographic images of most of the known primes, along with their histories. Snowstorm took note of an allicon nearby working as a custodian; a strange sight to her. They were first led to prima, at which point jetfire let out a hardy chuckle, confusing both. Ignoring it, elita began her lesson.

"Uncovered ancient records revealed that prima was the first cybertronian to bear the matrix of leadership. Early in cybertrons history, when our race was but beginning, it was invaded and occupied by the alien quintessons, who presented themselves as the creators of our people. They build many of cybertrons early cities and oversaw the birth of most protoforms as their slaves"

"filth!" seeker growled as he banged his cane

"Prima rose to lead the first instances of rebellion; he ignited the flames of resistance in our race but was unfortunately soon after executed by the quintessons"

"noooo" seeker pleaded

A depression suddenly took him, one which the other two bots could not ignore.

"what is it?" prime asked

"I…I knew him. Prima was one…of the 13, their leader"

The information hit the two femmes like a nucleon blast and was quite a revelation.

"as was alpha trion" he added

That bit hit elita hard, and she took a moment looking almost as if she were going to pass out.

"sorry" he shrugged

"I…I just can't even process that now. I think I'm going to have to have words with the archivists"

"maybe we should continue" prime suggested

They next came to the image of an intense looking green femme wielding a crossbow-like weapon.

"the next bearer after prima was Beta prime, a slave turned revolutionary whom finished what prima started and led the campaign that forced the quintessons off cybertron, winning what has come to be known as the first great war. We now move on to what is known as the dark age of the primes"

That part gave the seeker a worrisome feeling. They then moved to an image of winged white and black bot.

"An age of peace followed the war, in which Nova prime took the matrix and, for the most part, united our people. Nova believed that the cybertronians should spread their glory to other worlds and races. It would be later revealed that he was in truth power hungry and firmly believed in aggressive expansion and supremacy of the galaxy. This ambition would mean his end as he perished in his endeavors. The matrix was recovered and returned to cybertron, and none too soon as tensions had risen to warfare. Segregation still remained between the bots the quitessons had designated as warriors and as slaves. The warriors, who dubbed themselves decepticons, instigated what became the second great war"

They then moved to the next hologram, depicting a blue and gold bot encased in silver battle armor.

"zeta prime was given the matrix and forced into command to combat the decepticons. It was under him that the autobots won the war, though in what is considered a controversial way. His history as a hardened soldier made him a very aggressive leader who supported firm militarization, even after the war had ended. His ambition was his undoing as he was killed in what has been said to have been a collaboration between both autobots and decepticons"

Next was an orange, red and gold bot who just looked arrogant, even as a hologram.

"in this new time of peace, a high council of senators attempted to manage and hold power over cybertron. Many cycles later, when threats of a new decepticon uprising began, they made sentinel, one of their loyal enforcers, prime. Like zeta, sentinel was a brutal military leader and under him, segregation, functionalism, racism and unrest flourished. He persued every underhanded and dishonorable tactic in pursuit of crushing the decepticons and solidifying his power over cybertron and even the council. He would eventually be slain in battle by the decpeticons new leader, megatron"

The seeker flinched and narrowed his optics at the mention of the name but said nothing. They moved on and elita-one, noticeably and predictably, changed temperament. The seeker looked up to see a heroic looking red and blue bot, captured in a pose of looking ahead, as if to the future, while holding a blaster in hand.

"I must admit, I do know the more intimate details of this prime" elita smiled

Seeker bowed and generously gestured for her to proceed. Snowstorm herself was quite eager; never having researched much of the in depth history of the primes who came before, even optimus.

"optimus prime was forged orion pax, a laborer and archivist. He was…an idealistic and kind-sparked bot. After the death of sentinel, the matrix disappeared and the remnants of the high council attempted to govern and deal with the decepticons, primarily by acting as if they were not a true threat. Orion, and his conjux endura, were badly damaged in a decepticon raid. They…we were saved by alpha trion and rebuilt in to battle-worthy new forms and trion gave orion the matrix, making him optimus prime. Optimus led the autobots in the centuries of the third great war with the decepticons. This period also saw the transformers meeting of the humans here on earth and began our intertwined histories"

They reluctantly moved on to the next one, that of a bulky red, white and blue bot.

"after optimus fell in battle, his military commander ultra magnus took the matrix and command. Magnus prime held a short but accomplished tenure. Rather than dying, he relinquished the matrix to his successor after the matrix appeared to have chosen said bot"

They then moved to a young looking red bot with flame designs.

"rodimus prime, originally hot rod, was the youngest known prime and something of a controversial one. Not evil or destructive, but brash and inexperienced at leadership. His time as prime lasted only a few stellar cycles before optimus was revived, to whom rodimus relinquished the matrix again. Optimus led the autobots for many more years, during which both magnus and hot rod died in battle. Optimus too met his end in the final battle of the war, in which he defeated the decepticon leader galvatron"

They moved on to the next prime who was, to the seekers surprise, a beast bot; he was mostly black with blue, white and silver parts.

"after the war, governments again attempted to manage cybertron. In this time, beast bots became more prominent with the rise of two new groups; the maximals, a sub-force of the autobots and the predacons, a splinter faction of the decepticons. One maximal commander, primal prime, rose to keep the still aggressive decepticons, as well as predacon radicals, in check. At the end of these conflicts he to also died in battle"

"I feel like I'm seeing a pattern here" seeker commented

"yeah, me too" snowstorm winced

They then moved to the next image, that of a bulky yellow female bot; the ladder on her back made it clear her alt mode was that of a fire truck.

"upon the rise of the predacon warlord gigatron, who ravaged worlds, Fire Prime rose to counter him. She led a successful campaign against his forces and defeated him here on earth. She was a well-respected and powerful prime who served for many years. Unfortunately, the circumstances of her death while in space are still a mystery, as well as what became of the matrix. By all accounts it was passed to another autobot, and so on over the years through the ranks and even colonies, though we have no records to track its bearers…"

Prime was stunned to see the next and final image; herself. The image of her appeared to have been captured during her speech at the ceremony after having stopped flamewar. She was both in awe and flattered, doing her best to not gawk.

"until now" elita finished with a smile

"oh, I know this one!" seeker cried out

The other two were unsure if it was a jest or simply his age showing.

"yes well, I gather you know this story fairly well. However, I wonder…"

"what is it?" prime asked

"well, one of the myths of the matrix is its containing the essence of those that carried it before and being able to draw on their sparks and wisdom"

"well I certainly haven't experienced anything like that yet"

"no, it's just, if it were true, imprints and remnant data would be left in from all those who carried it. In theory, those imprints could be decoded, giving us a full history of all those who had the matrix"

I don't know if that's…"

"I meant nothing by it, it was just a theory, one that could be pursued in the future for the sake of historical accuracy"

"yes well, I will consider it. Seeker, have you found this visit…"

The loud answer she suddenly received was horrific snoring. They both gawked with confusion at the sight; the old bot had dozed off at a moment's notice, while still standing.

"for primus sake" snowstorm face palmed

Elita one gestured towards his cane, which was holding his weight and keeping him standing. Slowly and nervously, the prime inched her foot forward and nudged it slightly, bringing the massive bot crashing to the ground. He suddenly jumped up again with renewed vigor, his cane in its weapon form and swung all about. The two had to jump back to avoid being hit as he cried out in fury. He finally calmed and remembered where he was.

"oh it's you, have we finished?" he asked

"yes, now, let's see about finding you some more permanent accommodation" she smiled up at him

Elita smiled as she watched the two leave together.

"doesn't need to be too nice, anything is better than being an icicle" he laughed


	15. Chapter 15

With making a new friend in the seeker and reconnecting with her prime lineage, snowstorm had business to get down to. She headed for the grand archive to research the void scepter. She scanned through many data tracks of known weapons throughout history.

"slag, this is getting me nowhere"

She then recalled the seekers words regarding what he himself had been told of the staff.

"it was the weapon…of a god" echoed in her mind

"perhaps I'm going about this the wrong way. I'm looking too much into fact, when what I might need is fiction"

She looked into more of the religious texts and after some time of skimming through things she did not understand, she found what she was looking for.

"The death god Mortilus, aided by his all-consuming weapon, the void staff, perished in the god war which he had instigated. Wait, what, that's all!"

She rubbed her head in frustration and exhaustion; she knew what she had to do and it was something she had put off for a long time.

Within his training space, drift, slowly and gracefully, practiced with his great sword. Slow steps and patient movements, he glided in almost a dance. He heard the activation of the door but kept his back to the opening, already able to detect who had come.

"prime, to what do I owe the off duty visit?"

"I…need a religious lesson" she admitted

He smiled and let out a slight chuckle as he continued.

"I hoped for so long for this to come, and yet, why come to me, why not speak with the experts like pyra magna or heretech?"

"because their religious fanatics. You…you're grounded and understanding and…and someone I can trust to tell me what I need to know without leading me astray"

He turned to her with content smile and dropped into a cross-legged sit, his sword lying across his legs. She came to sit the same across from him, willing to listen.

"what is it you need to know snowstorm?"

"as much as you know about what religion tells us of our beginnings"

"Hm, yes, while learning under the circle of light I became well versed in such things. Understand that what you will be told is forged of fact, story…and most importantly, faith; rarely is a race privileged with true knowledge of its genesis. Countless eons ago, three cosmic beings existed; Unicron, Gaea and a being only known as The One. Unicron we know became an engine of destruction and chaos and, outside of her existence, no other knowledge is known of the history of gaea. The One chose to seed life, and so fractured itself into 5 new beings; the gods who would shape cybertron and seed it with what they considered to be perfectly designed lifeforms"

"Us"

"Indeed. These five were Primus the life giver; Solomus, who represented wisdom; Adaptus, blessed with the power of infinite transformation; Epistemus, the personified of knowledge and finally Mortilus, the Death-bringer. It was said that mortilus turned on the others, and a great battle known as the god war ensued. The death bringer felled three of his siblings before being vanquished by primus. Primus took the remains and life forces of his siblings to form the greatest gifts he could bestow to his creations. Epistemus; she became the template of the brain module, so that we may always remember what we learn in our lifetimes. Adaptus inspired the transformation cog, so that we may forever have the power to change. And solomus was forged into a receptacle of boundless wisdom…"

"the matrix?!" she gasped with a whisper

"Of course; even mortilus left an influence; the creation of the allspark, the place where all lost sparks go to live on forever. Primus brought these together within himself and sacrifices his being, becoming the living core of the world they'd forged, cybertron. He gave us our greatest gift of all, the spark of life, all born from his very own. This new world however drew the attention of unicron, and to defend himself, primus birthed the first of these new beings; the 13. Prima, Vector prime, Alpha prime, Solus prime, Micronus Prime, Alchemist prime, Nexus prime, Onyx Prime, Amalgamous Prime, Quintus Prime, Logos Prime, Megatronus Prime and Autonomous Prime. These warriors together battled and defeated unicron, though we all know today that he survived. After that much of the history and fates of the 13 are unknown save for two. Megatronus became a decibel of unicron and betrayed his brethren and was forever more known as The Fallen. The only other thing, which the circle of light alone had discovered, was that Logos Prime was the true identity of being known as Liege Maximo. And that, I'm afraid, is all I can tell you"

"thank you drift"

She smiled and set her hand to rest on his affectionately. He looked to it there with a light smile before it faded to one of more remorse.

"And with that, I'm afraid our tale…has ended"

With a mix of happiness and sadness on his face, he lifted his great sword with both hands and set it on her lap. He placed her hands on it yet left his to linger on top of hers for a few moments, as if not wishing to let go. She looked to him, confused and pleading for an explanation.

"I hereby resign from active duty"

"what, why!?" she asked frantically

"Our recent adventure has brought me to many revelations. In the decepticons I faced the darker parts of my past that I had tried to wipe away. And yet, when we stayed with the other autobots, I reconnected with the friends who showed me a better way. I realize now it is with those friends I wish to remain. As much as it pains me to say it, with the formation of the new military force, team prime is a bit unneeded in a sense. I stayed in the city because I thought you needed me, but I think my service to you was my excuse for avoiding choosing what to do next. You have been trained well and become a great warrior, and a far better leader"

Finding going on harder to bare, drift chose to silently rise and bowed respectfully to the prime. She wished to return it in kind but through the shock and sadness, could not find the strength to stand; her lip quivered and hands trembled, clenching the blade in them. As he slowly walked by to leave, her hand weakly caught his wrist, causing him to linger. She wanted to say something to him, but just could not find the power to.

"thank you" was all she could manage above a tearful whisper

"thank you" he returned before silently leaving the room

Somewhere deep in the depths of space, in the hazardous territory of an asteroid field, sideways and his decepticon renegades sat. sideways had insisted this was the position they needed to be to fufill their scheme.

"How much longer must we wait?" scourge growled

"agreed, you said we would be granted access to great power if we…"

Thrusts complaining was interrupted by bludgeons sword at his throat.

"a little patience might do you well, squid head"

"why you insolant"

"shut up you lot, your giving me a processor ache" sideways groaned

"I'm with squid head, we have yet to be rewarded for our efforts" trickdiamond spoke up

Before the debate could go further, the void staff began to react; coming to life.

"you wanted something to happen, well you get your wish" sideways remarked

The staff reacted and with a burst of energy that, even in space, sent the decepticons flying backwards. Its energy tore a hole in the very fabric of space before them, which winded into a distorted vortex. They saw some distorted forms within its image, which soon began to take shape as they emerged. To the decepticons horror, they saw a parade of the most vile and monstrous transformers of their history. Mega empress, Gigatron, Antagony, Thunderwing, Overlord, Jhiaxus, Razorclaw, Wreckage, tarantulas, Shadow Striker, sky shadow, Grindcore and Clampdown marched out to stare down the lesser evils. Unseen, a disembodied, free-floating spark also emerged and invaded thrusts body. His body jerked about before subsiding, though it went unnoticed by the others due to the current phenomenon.

"this shall do…for now"

Thrusts spark went cold at recognizing the shrill, high-pitched voice in his head.

"no, no, not you!"

"carry on and say nothing, otherwise I may be tempted to see what damage I can do while in here"

"primus help me" he prayed

The vicious new army stood and glared amongst themselves until their attention was drawn to the portal. From it, a final form began to emerge, the presence of which caused the staff to act on its own and fly from sideways' hand. Appearing was a large, bulky purple and red bot, twice as tall as the standard sized cybertronian. He grasped the staff in his mighty hand and its energy shot forth like a storm and into his cohorts, empowering them.

"welcome back my old friend" he smiled to the staff

"glad to have been of service" sideways crossed his arms

"your assistance has been considerable, disciple of chaos"

"chaos is what I do; I presume your intention is to rebuild cybertron in your image?"

"cybertron was a failed experiment. It is dead and lost. It is on this derelict rock, earth, that I shall shape my new age"

With that, the god of old and his followers departed into the void for their target.

"by the inferno, all those tyrants and warlords, how did he…" cyclonus started

"the death-bringer has been collecting the worst of the worst to serve him for millenniums" sideways explained

"thank primus none of the Decepticon Justice Division members were in there or we'd be fragged" thrust sighed

"odd to not also see megatron, or galavtron or whatever" scourge wondered

"hehe, his spark is already enslaved by another, which is our next stop"

"we aren't going with them to earth?" trickdiamond spoke up

"worry not my friends, we will still have front row seats to the carnage to come. However, we have other monsters to unleash first"

With that, sideways generated another warp gate, which they filed through. Thrust however lingered, weary of the voice he heard in the back of his head.

"yes, bring me to the strongest being in the universe" it laughed

Deep in pity and depression, snowstorm prime sat at the bar at maccadams, drowning her sorrows. In her eyes, her life had truly fallen apart, to a degree, in the last few days. She thought she had faced difficulties in the past crises but she'd forgotten about the challenge of change. She wondered how the old ice inferno would feel at seeing herself now. She had been reading many human books lately; Alice in Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz, The Phantom Tollbooth. All stories of people finding themselves in strange a new world; that's what becoming a prime was like. With the apparent ultimate victory of stopping the decepticons coup, and apparent disregard to the rogue element of the void staff, she had been forced to say goodbye to many of her closest friends.

To her horror, drift was not the only bot who would be leaving to join the little community bumblebee and his lot had built alongside the humans. Jazz, another one of her closest friends, had also announced his retirement to join his close friends again. Nautica, to be with skids, arcee, seaspray, airazor and tigertron were all also going as well. Unfortunately, as her conjux arcee was going, it meant aileron would be leaving as well. They had all left the day before.

Lancer announced her leaving the team as well, soon to be traveling to the lunar research facility with greenlight, who had been accepted there. Astrotrain took off to reconnect with what was left of his old decepticon chums, though blitzwing stepped forward to take his place on the team. After his recovery, side burn was quick to take nightracer and jump ship; despite his combat skill, she imagined things got to real for the youth. As she feared, barricade and snarl chose to join big convoys new military force. It was a choice she feared most of her teammates would take up. Riptide, snowcat, spittor, nightbird, tailgate, swift and sixknight all remained as part of the team though, as well as new member roller. Thankfully, she need never worry about buzzsaw, as their bond was as strong as his and soundblasters' had been now.

"team prime is unneeded" drifts words endlessly rung in her processor

Waspinator fluttered over to refill her cup, wearily as she was about 15 shots in now. Ordinarily maccadam would have cut a bot off at that point, but one must be weary when said bot has such power over the city and could be prone to rash decisions in this state.

"good evening to you prime" she heard a voice

She turned to see the large, blue, winged form of the decepticon general deathsaurus and his consort Esmeral. Many had wondered why he hadn't joined in the rebellion; whether it be he wasn't interested or knew it was doomed, she didn't care. She nodded respectfully and the duo made for the table maccadam led them to. She wondered why they had not gone to soundblasters old place, before a moment of clarity reminded her of why she had also not gone there. Tonight a group of paradronian femme performers were doing a provocative song and dance show, attracting a lot of rowdy types. She recalled snowcat was heading there with his old buddy demolishor. She heard the seat beside her pulled and saw smiling riptide plop down.

"how you hanging in there prime?"

"fine just fine; never better. I don't need drift, let him go be happy with the autobots and humans!"

Her drunk ramblings were punctuated by her head dropping on to the bar; she had passed out. Riptide watched her then looked about confused for a few moments.

"drift, drift. Why would she mention…oh…OOOOOOOH" he thought to him self

His revelation made him feel even sorrier for his commander and he patted her on the back, eliciting a grown from the prime. He'd watch over her for the time being, and ordered a drink to ease his own sadness at the separation from his friends. After a few hours snowstorm had awakened and begun to sober up, while her companion was a few drinks in. She leaned over to put her arm around him, pulling him close and clinking their helmets together.

"thank you for staying with me my friend" she said lowly

Unseen by the duo, the seeker squeezed his way through the entrance, leaving the door quite damaged. Before his crimson optics found the two, they met those of maccadam across the room. He gasped and shook his head in confusion, to which maccadam raised his finger to his mouth in a sign of silence before smiling and nodding. Seeker happily returned the nod with respect and made his way to the stout proprietor. Prime looked over to see the two talking is secret, before the seeker suddenly burts out in jubilation, picking the smaller bot up into a thankful hug.

"what's with that" she thought

She walked over to the two, at which point maccadam excused himself.

"prime, the council wishes to see you immediately" he reported

"really, huh, why would they not contact me…"

She then registered that she had about 15 missed communications from Playback over the last hour.

"oh" she finished

She looked back to see riptide was in no state to accompany her back to the command center.

Seeker, could you please…"

"Skyfire…my name is skyfire"

She looked up at him confused before bursting out in a large smile.

"You remembered?!"

"with a little help but yes"

"skyfire, please keep an eye on riptide while I'm gone"

The large seeker went over to sit at the bar and prime made to leave, sparing only a brief glance of suspicion towards maccadam.

**Not sure if I got the point across on account of not knowing how well my writing it but the implication is that snowstorm had feelings for drift, so yeah. **


	16. Chapter 16

Snowstorm made her way into the command center, where she was met by crusher. He was a large hunched yellow bot with a mean look to him. His alt mode of a steam roller was clear as the roller itself split in robot mode, acting as his massive rolling feet. He had been made one of the security guards, leading her to the elevator and escorting her to the meeting. She passed ironhide, a large black, intense looking autobot soldier. He was covered in scars and scuffs and bore two massive cannons on his arms. Flanked by sideswipe and sunstreaker, they were escorting decepticons slugfest and overkill away, clearly the two being under arrest for something.

She was brought to the upper floor and as she walked by the window she could see a massive form looming by the outer limits of the city; Tidal Wave. As the largest and most powerful bot in the city and in the new military, he was charged with guarding the cities outer perimeter. She worried too much of a military presence was beginning to appear. Crusher led her into the meeting room and the council convened.

"Glad you could find some time join us prime" big convoy frowned

Though convoy was famous for his professional attitude, she did not take kindly to the insubordinate, suggestive tone in his voice. She could question her merits as a leader till the end of time, but she past the point of allowing it from others.

"Do you have something to say commander?" she shot back

The aggressive and commanding tone in her voice gave the whole council pause, and convoy, caught off guard, backed off.

"No; my apologies prime"

They all sat and windblade produced a list of their discussion points.

"First and most important is we received a report from one of our outposts at the edge of the solar system. They reported picking up an unknown and powerful but seemingly cybertronian energy burst in deep space. They are following up and will reporting any further gleamed information"

The rest of the council nodded in understanding. Snowstorm however was given greater pause; she felt a tug, almost a wave of suspicion from the matrix itself. It's as if the talisman were trying to warn her; could it have to do with the void staff?

"Next of note is that officer Strongarm has been promoted to head of the security force with the leave of Jazz"

"Was not chromia next in line? Or even quickshadow; she did have command during his hiatus" sandstorm asked

"Chromia has been promoted to a new position and quickshadow resigned from the security force and has joined the intelligence wing under obsidian"

"I see; I was not aware we even had that" snowstorm frowned

"Nor I" convoy added

"The department had been in remission until recent events convinced the council it might be best to reinstate its activity" obsidian answered

"Also, in honor of the original military that safeguarded cybertron, we'd like to officially rename our new military force the Elite Guard" Windblade went on

The council voted and was in unanimous agreement.

"Don't forget my friend Mr. Mock Turtle" Rum-maj spoke

"Yes, thank you, that brings me to my next concern; Halfshell, previously a lieutenant in the security force, has gone rogue. He and his fellow Seacons have been reported as stealing a cargo ship from the dry dock and taking to sea. Apparently they intend to take up their original piratical calling"

"Fantastic, we'll have to deal with them at some point" prime commented

Over the next few minutes prime found herself blurring out the councils words as she again thought back to her departed friends.

"Prime!" she heard

"What?"

The council together frowned at her inattentiveness.

"Are you alright?" windblade asked with some sincere concern

She sighed; she and the council had never really connected on a personal level. She rarely ever even talked to any of them outside of meetings.

"Forgive me, I simply find myself…struggling to adjust to the many changes I've had to face"

The council went silent, somewhat ashamed in their rush to anger; they all knew such feelings well. The simple fact that they were a council together, governing for different groups, was a new concept all its own.

"I think every single bot in this city has felt the same, prime. The trick is to hold those changes close; tight, and let them change you into a better bot" convoy said genuinely

"Hear, hear!" hot shot cheered

"Pop goes the weasel" wreck-gar also cheered nonsensically

"Thank you, all of you; I will try. I'm sorry, you were saying windblade?"

"You are set to leave after the meeting with big convoy to inspect trypticon in its new function. You will be accompanied by General Morshower from the united states military"

"Human military, why are they involved?" hot shot asked

Snowstorm shared his concern; despite to reestablished connections with the native race, she held no value or even knowledge for them.

"Trypticon currently sits on human territory, outside cybertronian jurisdiction. They wish to make sure no threat to the human population is present by its placement" sandstorm responded

"Fair enough" prime admitted

With that the meeting was dismissed and prime made her way to the groundbridge nexus with big convoy, joined by ironhide, who she learned was his new second in command.

"I had hoped Elita-one would keep the position, what with her extensive service record, but alas I could not keep her from other interests"

"I like her right where she is" prime smiled

"By the way, how is the growth of the elite guard anyway?" she asked

Adequate; quite a good amount of hardened soldiers from both factions, so I'm happy. And it's refreshing to see a good amount of eager colonists signing up as well…"

Prime knew she had to speak up; she stopped mid step and turned to him with a serious look. Again convoy found her demeanor catching him off guard; she really was acting the part of a prime.

"Let me make this VERY clear commander; I do not want this city turning into a military state. We are not at war and I do not want the elite guard growing beyond its necessity. The point of the elite guard is to be ready for possible threats to the city, not fortify and militarize it for the sake of strength!"

"Understood" he responded slowly and in surprise

She turned and continued down the hall in a confident stride, not waiting for the two larger bots to catch up. Buzzsaw fluttered past the two to perch on his partners shoulder, increasing her assertive image.

"Hm, I like her" ironhide smirked

"Yeah, me to" convoy nodded

They caught up and the trio arrived at the groundbridge nexus, where the middle-aged human and his escort troops were waiting.

"Snowstorm prime?" he asked

"Yes"

"General Glenn Morshower, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the United States military, it's a pleasure to meet you"

"Likewise general, shall we"

"Groundbridge stable and ready, prime" brainstorm saluted

The four bots and their human guests went through the vortex, which deposited them in trypticons main hanger. The humans appeared a bit disoriented from the experience.

"Don't worry, I felt that way the first time too; it will ware off" shew smiled

She turned and was shocked to see chromia standing before them, flanked by springer, roadbuster, gutcruncher and barricade.

"Chromia?"

"Warden chromia" ironhide corrected

"Ha, a promotion indeed" snowstorm laughed

They proceeded with a tour of the titan turned fortress turned prison. Most of the upper level rooms had been stripped and converted to cells. Most of the external defenses and battlements had been repurposed inwards for security. Big convoy was very picky about who would serve as guards. He wanted to ensure the staff was made of unprejudiced autobots and highly trustworthy decepticons to ensure unbiased treatment of the prisoners. Discreetly he ordered that the decepticon guards be watched very carefully to ensure none sought free their comrades. The inspection entourage passed many of the decepticon prisoners, most of which glared, cursed at or attempted to attack the prime. Most of which was from flamewar, who had been placed in one of the more secured cells. Bazzsaw screeched back at the mad decepticons ravings.

"They certainly don't like you do they" Morshower said

"No they do not" she responded

There was also Terrorsaur and his accomplice, the powerful and beastly Razorclaw. She had, months ago, aided in his escape from imprisonment and attempted a poorly conceived takeover of the city.

"My grandmother had a wrangle with some decepticons, a few actually" Moreshower spoke up

"Really?" prime was surprised

"She was one of the best in the original Earth Defense Command. Her first op was a weird one. The insecticons took over a small town, brainwashing or devouring everyone in it. Sick bots were looking to spawn a whole horde of their like. It was the first major operation between the military and the autobots. It was what showed us that gain, rather than threat, could be achieved from cooperation with cybertronians. It was my grandmother's stories of that victory that inspired me to be a soldier"

"I'm glad at least one human was inspired by my kind. Some months ago we had an incident with a human terrorist group, with some very strong anti-transformer beliefs, infiltrating the city. Luckily they were apprehended before they were able to set off a bomb in a public area"

"I'm aware of that unfortunate situation; I oversaw their transfer and imprisonment myself. By the way, you…don't know a bot named jazz do you?"

"Yes, why?"

"Well, he was part of that op I was talking about and…apparently he and my grandmother had some kind of "thing" between them"

Prime, finding no way to respond to that, simply said nothing and they continued on in silence.

Chromia found herself lingering further back to walk beside ironhide. He seemed a bit unease by her sudden proximity and began toiling with his cannons to distract himself.

"Ironhide huh; good name, strong name"

"Just a name; I know a few other bots who share it"

"As did I, hell of a soldier, legendary on the battlefield"

"I like 'em already. As your using past tense I assume he's gone?"

"The way all good soldiers go. He and I were very, very close; perhaps you could help me cope with the loss"

The change in her tone and look, like that of a predator, made the grizzled soldiers optics almost short circuit and he found himself almost stumble. She giggled, with the slightest hint of sardonic glee in it.

"You alright?" convoy asked

"FINE! Hrm fine sir, just…evaluating possible…confrontations. With permission I'd like to do routine inspections of the facility…for safety sake"

"Strategically sound as always old friend, how often would you imagine they need be?"

"As often as possible" he said lowly while eyeing chromia

The blue femme marched passed the black armored warrior as if nothing had transpired, while smiling internally. The command crew finally came to the one prisoner Prime was the most anxious to see; shockwave. He sat still as a statue in his cell looking unblinkingly at the wall. They stood for nearly a minute, yet he said nothing nor moved. They knew he had detached their presence, there's no way he couldn't.

"Silence; I wonder if it's pride or shame" Morshower commented

"As usual, lesser beings speak of things they are incapable of understanding" the cyclops spoke up

"I am a soldier, unlike you apparently"

Shockwave stared for a few more seconds before returning to his sulking.

"I gave you your chance shockwave; a second chance in a new world, and you refused. You're a bot of logic; where's the logic in trying to revive a flawed old order?"

He stood up, looking like a lanky metal scarecrow and stalked over to the energy wall acting as the entrance to his cell. He glared down at the prime, but this time, she met his gaze confidently. Last time he peered down at her, she felt unease, fear and anger; now there was confidence and resolve. He faltered in his mind; he no longer had the power to intimidate her. A shame, as that was part of the reason for his redesigned look. Against his expectations, she had evolved into a strong prime. Still, he thought, he could enact one small, final act of vengeance; seed doubt in her mind to rob her of self-righteousness.

"were this the "new world" you claim it to be, you would not wear the autobot badge" he accused

He stuck out a long pointed finger at her chest insignia after which he slunk back to his previous position. She looked down, shocked at the accusation and unable to find the words to argue. Convoy put his arms on her shoulders and softly moved her along, believing that staying and arguing the point would only give the decepticon what he wanted.

"Are you all right?" Morshower asked

"It is a question I have asked myself before. The matrix of leadership has always been a token of command within the autobots, so I did not argue the point of being marked as such. But, if I truly stand for unification, how can I when I wear the mark of a faction?"

"Well that ain't an easy question, or one that anyone but you can answer"

With both human and prime satisfied with the state and security of the prison, they returned to the main hanger to request the groundbridge. Suddenly there was an anomaly, a ripple of space & time in front of them before a burst of light and energy knocked them all off their feet. From the point of energy and smoke appeared three bots. The largest charged them and they drew their weapons.

"Prime, hahahaha!" skyfire laughed

"Seeke…I mean skyfire, what are you doing here?!" she asked

"I found some of me old seekers mates, I ain't the last one! And, I remembered I can teleport with me own personal spacebridge…and it still works, imagine that!" the old bot shouted excitedly.

Weapons were lowered and replaced with general confusion. Prime was picked up by the larger bot and pulled into tight hug as he spun about, almost falling over multiple times. She took notice of the other two bots; one she recognized as Flamesnort, the dragon-like decepticon exile from the ark group. The other she only knew of; silverbolt, a wolf beast-bot with the visage of a knight in robot mode.

"Soooo…we just how much ensuring that this place was the most secure place on the planet and "the bot that time forgot" just booped in her with no trouble at all?" ironhide frowned

"uh huh" chromia confirmed

Big convoy huffed with aggravation and rubbed his optics; the ancient bot had indeed given them one more thing to worry about.

"I will have the science guild rig up a mass warp shield for trypticon, unless he might already have one" convoy queried

"I'll have barricade and gutcruncher look into" chromia responded

Snowstorm was finally set back down, though she now had a severe back ache and was pulled over to meet the other seekers.

"This here be flamesnort" he started

"We've met, kinda. You were in recharge when I visited the ark"

"Grand" he growled, not interested in the slightest

"and this here is thunderhowl, one of the greatest seeker warriors!"

"wait, but I thought you…"

"Thunderhowl was my forged name, my prime. After the age of the primes ended, I took the name silverbolt to start anew"

"I see. Well it's good to meet you both and I'm glad seeker, I mean…slag. I'm sorry skyfire"

"Worry not prime, either name be fine with me"

"Good, but this could have waited; you shouldn't have come here like this. It is such a breach of security"

The old bot simply shrugged, uninterested in the youths lecture.

"Alright, come 'er you and hold on. Don't move or you'll die!" he shouted

He suddenly scooped the prime up and huddled with the other two seekers as energy began to overtake his body and spread around them.

"nonononon…!" she cried out

Another burst of transwarp energy and the four were gone. A despondent looking buzzsaw landed on the spot of energy scorched metal.

"Big convoy to command, groundbridge to trypticon. Also, track snowstorm primes signal and let me know when you find it. Out"

"You angry, boss bot?" ironhide asked

"(Huff) these antics are waring on my circuits. This seeker is a wild card we don't need in the way and I feel prime needs to get her act together for the sake of our people's future"

Unseen by the maximal commander, the master spy cassette-bot was recording his words.


End file.
